Inner London least car-dependent place in Britain

The Campaign for Better Transport's (CBT) annual study of car dependency in British cities, released yesterday, found that London is the least car-dependent city in the UK.

London scored so highly thanks in large part to the quality of its bus services and the pre-Olympic investment in public transport infrastructure, but it's a little surprising to discover that London was ever off the top of the list, given the state of most British cities.

Encouragingly, the report found that "London was the only city where we estimated less than half of people commuted by car," and that "low car ownership in inner boroughs combined with low car usage for school travel and commuting helped London to top the driving category."

As the Council conducts a consultation on a possible borough-wide CPZ, predicated on the basis that population growth will inevitably increase pressure on parking space on Lewisham's roads, it's worth keeping in mind that the long-term trend for car ownership per capita in inner London is down. Fewer and fewer people feel the need to own a car, and with most of the new homes being built next to transport hubs (another CBT recommendation) per capita car ownership is likely to experience another big drop.

In six years of living in here, near Brockley station, where large numbers of new homes have been added and where commuters numbers have shot up thanks to the East London Line, we've not noticed any increase in the number of cars parked on our road. Parking is still relatively easy. This is not to say that cars and parking are not big problems in some areas, but that CPZs are not necessarily the right solution.