Liveable neighbourhoods

As part of our efforts to create a more equal Islington, we’re determined to transform the borough’s streets into more environmentally-friendly places where communities can come together and flourish.

Our liveable neighbourhoods are at the heart of achieving this. They’re designed to create more welcoming areas where children can play, where local people can come together in green, biodiverse spaces, and where it’s easier for everyone to travel. In achieving this, they can help reduce toxic air pollution and make it easier for local people to harness the physical and mental health benefits of walking, cycling, wheeling, and using buggies and wheelchairs.

Your feedback will help shape Islington’s liveable neighbourhoods. We’re currently in the process of designing the neighbourhoods, and your feedback, insight, and ideas will shape the designs for each neighbourhood, which will then be subject to consultation. Our first liveable neighbourhood will be in Mildmay.

Your liveable neighbourhoods

Find out more about the liveable neighbourhood in your area.

Why we are creating liveable neighbourhoods

Liveable neighbourhoods are designed to create better, more welcoming spaces for local people and communities. There are a range of important reasons why they are being introduced, including:

Welcoming, community spaces

Through liveable neighbourhoods, we’re working to create more inviting, inclusive communities that all can enjoy. We want to create neighbourhoods where children can play, where people can sit in green spaces and chat, and where it’s easier for disabled people to get around.

Nearly 70 per cent of Islington households do not have access to their own motor vehicle, according to census data, and the poorest fifth of Islington households are the least likely to own a car. Despite this, cars are allocated the vast majority of Islington’s public space. Liveable neighbourhoods will see the council and communities work together to think about how best some of that space can be used to create cleaner, greener, healthier areas.

As an inner-city London borough, Islington isn’t blessed with a huge amount of green space, and many people do not have their own gardens, so bringing increased planting and greenery to the streets will bring huge benefits for everyone.

Cleaner, greener, healthier streets

Islington is one of the six London boroughs most at risk to climate change and, as last summer’s blistering heatwave showed, the climate emergency is already having an impact.

We know we have to look again at our streets to ensure they’re more environmentally-friendly. Liveable neighbourhoods will involve:

the building of attractive new green spaces to boost flood resilience,
increasing tree planting to cool the borough’s streets, and
cutting carbon emissions and air pollution by reducing the number of trips made by motor vehicle.

Motor vehicles contribute 50 per cent of Islington’s nitrogen dioxide emissions, so making it easier for local people to use alternative modes of transport can help us to create a net-zero carbon borough by 2030.

Health and wellbeing

Creating streets where it’s easier to walk, cycle, scoot, and use buggies and wheelchairs will bring huge mental and physical health benefits for all. Creating safer, more welcoming streets – through measures such as widened footpaths, improved crossings, and steps to make it easier to cycle - will help adults and children move around their neighbourhood safely, helping improve their health, and supporting young people's learning and development.

We know that road danger is the largest barrier preventing people from walking and cycling. Through liveable neighbourhoods, we can create less car-dominated streets where it’s easier to travel actively, making it easier for the many people that don’t have a car to travel to key amenities and get their daily exercise.