Opinion: Safer school streets for our children and communities.

This issue is something that schools are desperately trying to tackle to ensure that their pupils can get to and from school safely, whilst also ensuring their neighbours and community are respected.

We all know it’s not as simple as just ‘caring’ about what speed we travel or where we park, there are a million and one things on a parents’/carers’ minds on the school run - such as, getting to work, whether they can afford to pay their bills, heat their homes and feed their families with the cost of living crisis to name a few. I’m sure everyone would love to be able to walk their child to school each day, but I realise it sometimes just isn’t the reality.

But we do know that both schools’ and families’ priority in most cases are the safety and wellbeing of their children and sometimes a small reminder can help put everything into perspective.

With near misses daily and residents describing feeling “trapped in their own homes” in my own ward of Fletton and Stanground, it was clear to me that more is needed to be done to try and help schools and parents, so when I was elected as a City Councillor in May 2022 this was something I was determined to get involved with.The School Streets Scheme is a fantastic initiative that sees a Traffic Regulation Order in place, closing the road outside of a school during school drop off and school pick up times.

Back in May, I reached out to all local primary schools to ask if they would like to get involved with the school streets scheme, and started working with Stanground St John's last year. Since the scheme was implemented, the school has seen such a positive change during these times for staff, parents, pupils, and residents and we are now working with the Old Fletton School to implement the scheme there too.

If you know of a school that could do with having this scheme in the Peterborough area please get in touch by emailing me at [email protected] and I will give you some more information on how to apply.

We are also believe that all our residential streets should be set at 20mph with only arterial roads remaining at 30mph, this not only makes it safer for our children but reduces harmful admissions, reduces street noise and encourages more people to walk and cycle.

Uptake on this as a policy is gathering momentum, with it being implemented across the whole of Wales from September, we believe that Peterborough should be at the forefront of this in England. As a council we need a clear strategy for implementation rather than this piecemeal approach that sees only limited areas of our city getting 20mph zones.