Decision details

The roads outside schools can be very congested at school drop-off and pick-up times, resulting in concerns about road safety, localised air pollution, and in some cases, inconsiderate or dangerous parking.

School Streets is an initiative which aims to create a calmer, safer and more pleasant environment for children as they arrive at and leave school. School Streets involves temporarily restricting through-traffic and parking on small roads immediately outside of schools during drop-off and pick-up times only. This creates a safer and healthier environment for young people to walk, wheel, cycle or scoot to their school gates. Residents and people who need to enter the School Street by car, for example disabled or delivery drivers, may still do so.

The School Streets Pilot proposes to trial this initiative at 4 sites, namely: St Michael’s CE Primary School, Hamworthy Park Junior School, St Clement’s & St John’s CE Infant School, and Livingstone Road Infant and Junior Schools. The trial will run from February (7 February for St. Michael’s Primary School and Hamworthy Park Junior School and 28 February for St Clement’s & St John’s CE Infant School, and Livingstone Road Infant and Junior Schools) to the end of the school summer term, at which point a further decision will be made as to whether or not to make each of the School Streets permanent.

Initial engagement with the schools on the pilot streets/in the pilot area, families of the children at those schools, and nearby residents, has shown that the majority of respondents are in favour of the proposals and believe that the measures will have a positive overall impact. The Engagement reports can be found appended to this Decision Record – see Appendix 1.

A further public consultation will run in parallel to the School Streets trial, commencing once the measures are implemented.

The Portfolio Holder has considered the feedback from the initial engagement and has given due regard to the views of the local Ward Members and Officers. The Portfolio Holder has decided to proceed with the School Streets pilot as proposed.

The rationale for this decision is as follows:

• There are known, ongoing localised congestion issues around many schools, and this pilot scheme is a good opportunity to assess whether the School Streets initiative could help address these issues.

• Local ward members have been consulted and are supportive of the scheme.

• The schools themselves are supportive of the scheme.

• Behaviour change programmes including Sustrans ‘Bike It Plus’ are being run in these schools to help encourage families to walk, scoot, wheel or cycle to school, or for some of their journey. This can have a positive impact on the children’s physical and mental health.

• Even a small increase in the number of families travelling actively to school means a reduction in cars on the road, which will have a positive impact on the local highway network and reduce congestion.

• Encouraging and enabling travel by modes other than the car is in line with local and national policy (see ‘Background’, below)