Local policies and values are firmly centred on providing healthy and liveable places to be enjoyed by everyone. This has resulted in a shift in planning principles which refocuses transport planning and engineering practice towards a people–first approach.

Some of our most important places are located on arterial roads such as our main road–and high street shopping centres. These streets are complex andhave an important movement and place function.

Transport Planners, designers and project teams need to make informed decisions to allocate space and functionality for people walking, cycling, catching public transport and driving vehicles. The Healthy Streets approach designed by Lucy Saunders, provides an objective and transparent method to inform and promote the best possible outcome for people of all ages and abilities.

Our team of Healthy Streets® Practitioners audited 19 high streets andmain streets located in Greater Sydney. We generated evidence–led scores and highlighted road danger issues for each place to inform and evaluate future street designs.

As part of this pilot study, our communication specialist developed newreporting tools. This included a storyboard which visually presented the audit findings and conditions at each site using easily consumed graphics and photographs. The storyboards were developed to support discussion with multi–disciplinary teams, stakeholders and the community, and supported by plain, non–technical language.