Kids Streets
Every child in the West Midlands deserves safe, welcoming streets where they can walk, wheel, and cycle freely.
For too many children, that freedom has been lost as some streets have become dominated by traffic, pollution, and unsafe conditions. Kids Streets responds to this challenge.
Road Safety Commissioner, Mat MacDonald, and Active Travel Commissioner, Beccy Marston, are leading this project to empower children to design their own streets and help create a safer and healthier environment for their community.
Why Kids Streets?
An everyday walk to school or local places becomes stressful when streets are polluted, noisy, and hard to navigate. Children long for independence, yet unsafe crossings, narrow pavements and hostile traffic make even short journeys feel unsafe and unpleasant.
Children imagine simple freedoms — walking to a friend’s house, cycling to the park, playing under the shade of trees — yet their streets deny them. Fast traffic, uninviting pavements and nowhere to gather leave them watching childhood happen from indoors. These streets should nurture independence, not hold them back.
Our vision
By empowering children to design streets that suit their needs, we hope to achieve:
- Greener streets and cleaner air
- Shade, shelter and places to rest
- Safer and calmer streets
- Safer crossings and pedestrian priority
- Space to play, socialise and connect
- Space for safe walking, wheeling and cycling
Kids Streets go beyond the school gate, transforming neighbourhood streets into places where children can move, play, interact and learn.
The truth about our streets
Children deserve streets where they can walk, wheel, cycle, and play without fear. But they currently don't feel safe enough – independent school travel was down to just 12% in 2014.
And their fear is not unjustified. Nearly 1 in 400 children will be killed or seriously injured each year on the region’s roads. That's the average school size.
Behind every number is a family changed forever.
How are we going to make our streets safer for kids?
We can deliver our Kids Streets vision by making a variety of changes to our streets to make them safer and healthier.
Giving children a voice, listening to their communities and working closely with them to co‑design and deliver these improvements will be vital to their success.
Physical measures
- Pedestrian crossings
- Protected cycling and walking paths
- Cycle parking
- Shade, shelter and seating
- Play equipment
Behaviour change
- School and Community engagement
- Cycling, walking and wheeling activities and training
- Additional support from national and local charities, groups, and suppliers
- Road safety campaigns and training
Enforcement
- Speed reduction measures including 20mph zones and limits
- Pavement parking bans
- Cameras to reduce through traffic
Next steps
To implement our vision for Kids Streets, we will aim to take the following steps:
- Work with local partners to target areas where change will deliver a positive impact
- Listen to communities to capture their views, particularly those of children
- Test and learn to understand the best approach
- Support delivery and embed Kids Streets locally
- Build momentum and scale success to create safer, healthier and more inclusive streets for every child in the West Midlands
Read the Kids Streets vision
Explore the full Kids Streets vision document to learn more about the approach, evidence and opportunities to create safer, healthier streets for children across the West Midlands.