Sheffield
September 2021

Open letter to the City of Sheffield Council

Dear Councillors,

We are a group of health professionals, including nurses, doctors, physiotherapists, social prescribers & NHS staff living or working in the city of Sheffield, and we write to support the retention and extension of changes to active travel infrastructure in the city- space for us all to feel safe walking and cycling. We believe this is a basic human right, as is the right to clean air. 

Specifically we request the changes to Pinstone Street in the centre are retained. By reversing the current pedestrian and cycle access and allowing buses back in this area, other active travel funding and infrastructure, including the Connecting Sheffield and Future High Streets is jeopardised. These are important to improve public health and mitigate the climate emergency- that the council it self declared. 

The aim of this letter is to specifically state why active travel and safe spaces for walking and cycling are important. The points and evidence below will support the council to make decisions that will help benefit, protect, and reduce inequalities in the health of the population of Sheffield.

Climate crisis and health
In our work we have been reminded by our professional bodies of our responsibilities to raise the profile of the climate emergency, which is a public health emergency likely to have a much greater impact than COVID-19. We have a responsibility to speak up for disadvantaged groups who are
disproportionately vulnerable to the health and economic impacts of the climate crisis.

Health inequality
Deprivation is strongly associated with poor health outcomes. Premature death remains significantly higher in the most deprived areas of Sheffield compared with the least deprived areas.
Those living in areas of deprivation are less likely to drive, due to poverty or increased incidence of physical disability preventing driving. However these communities are much more likely to be injured in a road traffic collision.
Many of our communities do not have the financial means, health status, or abilities to access private car transport. Children, the frail elderly, and people with chronic illnesses or disabilities are disadvantaged in opportunities to access services and community by systems which prioritise private car transport. Electric buses have their place, but it’s not on Pinstone Street. Jeopardising Active Travel Fund investment will not help the city centre with much needed regeneration. 

Moves to promote safe active travel, including widening of pavements such as the Pinstone Street changes and provision of segregated paths, make the urban environment more accessible for people with disabilities and release other road space for reliable and efficient public transport.
Measures to improve the urban environment and promote active travel in Sheffield will differentially benefit the most disadvantaged members of our community and so help to reduce health disadvantages in the city.

Air pollution and health
Air pollution is strongly associated with poor health outcomes. A joint Royal College of Physicians and Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health report estimated that outdoor air pollution causes 40,000 deaths a year in the UK. Decisive action from the council to promote active travel and reduce private car traffic in Sheffield will help to reduce air pollution and associated harm to health. In 2013 9 year old Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah died of asthma induced by air pollution in London. In 2021 an inquest found that ‘air pollution made a material contribution to her death’ This gave this little girl the dubious honour of being the first person in the UK to have air pollution listed as a cause of death on her death certificate. This could happen in Sheffield without measures to reduce car use, including the proposed Connecting Sheffield plan.

Physical activity and health
Regular physical activity is associated with improved health outcomes at all ages. UK Chief Medical Officers recommend that children and young people should engage in moderate physical activity for at least one hour every day. For adults, 150 minutes of moderate activity per week is associated with a 40% reduction in risk of type 2 diabetes, 35% reduction in heart disease, 25% reduction in joint and back pain, and 20% reduction in bowel and breast cancer.
National data indicates that during 2019 only 66% of adults met this target, whilst in the same year fewer than 50% of journeys under two miles were made on foot.
Segregated infrastructure allows everyone to increase their physical activity levels through active travel; not only those who already enjoy regular physical activity. 
We ask that the council considers the beneficial and protective health effects of physical activity when considering its decisions about travel infrastructure in Sheffield .

Key points:

We are gravely concerned that suggested steps to reverse measures to create space for walking and cycling introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic would be a retrograde and harmful step for the health of the population of Sheffield. A reversal would counteract the recent good work done with Sheffield Healthy Holidays, Beat the Streets and Better Health Sheffield

• As health professionals & staff working in the NHS and social care, we have a responsibility to protect and promote the health of the population. We have a responsibility to address inequalities and to advocate for the needs of the most disadvantaged members of the population we serve. 
• We are concerned about the impact of the climate crisis on health, globally and locally.
• We are concerned about harms to health caused by air pollution in Sheffield & believe all citizens have a right to clean air. This is a matter of social justice and affects us all.
• Regular physical activity is associated with improved health outcomes at all ages and needs the council to recognise its importance in the decisions it takes.
• We support the retention, and further development and integration of infrastructures designed to support active travel and clean air for the whole population of Sheffield, to mitigate inequalities in health, local mobility, and air quality and see reversal of these changes as an abdication of duty by the council & in contradiction to the climate emergency declared by the council. Reversal takes the population further from being the zero carbon city by 2030 it states on the Sheffield City Council website to be its goal.

yours sincerely,