According to the latest study by Clarks, Bromley was found to be the south east London borough with the least optimal walking distance for secondary school pupils.
In recent years, the UK government has been working to encourage more children to actively commute to school by foot or by bicycle, after it was reported that the percentage of primary school children who walk to school fell from 70 per cent to 51 per cent within a single generation.
To find out how much of a barrier the distance may be for London school children wanting to walk to school, researchers at Clarks analysed the proximity of secondary schools to each other south east London borough against recommended distance thresholds from academic literature and the UK government.
This gives an approximate estimation of how likely school children are to be within the three miles maximum walking distance of their local school and the more optimal walking distance of 1.5 miles.
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The study found that Bromley is the London borough with the least optimal walking distance for secondary school pupils.
Secondary schools in Bromley are within 3 miles of each other 44 per cent of the time – this drops to just 15 per cent when lowering the threshold to 1.5 miles.
In contrast, in the City of London, secondary schools are within three miles of each other 100 per cent of the time.
In 2014, the UK’s Department for Education set three miles as a statutory, maximum walking distance for secondary school kids before advising that free public transport should be offered to them by local authorities.
However, a study of 4,013 teenagers found that the majority of them who do walk to school also live within 1.5 miles of their school and that increasing this commute distance by even one mile would decrease the likelihood of a secondary school pupil walking to school by as much as 78 per cent.
Below are the south east London boroughs that are most and least likely to be within the 3-mile walking distance threshold.
Reading from London borough to percentage of how often one secondary school is within three miles of another school:
Bromley 43.5 per cent
Greenwich 68.5 per cent
Bexley 74.5 per cent
Lewisham 77.2 per cent
Southwark 85.5 per cent
Below are the south east London boroughs that are most and least likely to be within the 1.5 mile walking distance threshold.
Reading from London borough to percentage of how often one secondary school is within three miles of another school:
Bromley 14.9 per cent
Greenwich 26.4 per cent
Lewisham 27.5 per cent
Bexley 27.5 per cent
Southwark 40.7 per cent
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