The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 269 No 7223 p669
9 November 2002

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Living Streets campaign (www.livingstreets.org.uk)

Presence of a pharmacy sign of street friendliness

Pharmacy accessibility is one of the measures of the friendliness of local streets in London.

"Liveable London", a report on the accessibility needs and problems of older and disabled people produced by the Living Streets campaign, says that the distance and difficulty involved in walking to local services, like community pharmacies, makes many people dependent on friends, family and local authority arranged transport for daily needs.

The report says that 50 per cent of trips to community pharmacies in London are made on foot or by wheelchair, compared with one in seven by public transport and one in 10 by local authority subsidised taxi services. Most people live within 15 minutes of a pharmacy, but one person in seven has to travel for more than 20 minutes.

Living Streets wants to see changes to hostile and neglected street environments that compound isolation when ready access to local amenities is lost. Its Liveable London report describes a walkable neighbourhood as one where shops, banks, post offices and other services are available within 15 minutes walk along high quality pedestrian routes with few hazards. The report was launched on 30 October by London's mayor Ken Livingstone. A series of symbolically designed paving slabs was unveiled outside a parade of shops in Honeypot Lane, Stanmore, north London. One of the slabs, outside Mukundrai Kotecha's pharmacy in the parade, bears a green cross.