Agenda item

School Streets are a way to manage traffic around schools in a way that is particularly beneficial for children and their families travelling to them on foot or by other active modes.

Six School Streets have been successfully implemented/trialled with the BCP area with the last 2 years and this report provides an update on the programme to date. 

School Streets are aligned with the existing and emerging new Corporate Strategy objectives.

The Portfolio Holder for Connected Communities presented a report, a copy of which had been circulated to each Member and a copy of which appears as Appendix 'B' to these Minutes in the Minute Book.

The Committee was advised that School Streets were a way to manage traffic around schools in a way that is particularly beneficial for children and their families travelling to them on foot or by other active modes.

Six School Streets have been successfully implemented/trialled with the BCP area with the last 2 years and the report provided an update on the programme to date. School Streets are aligned with the existing and emerging new Corporate Strategy objectives. Over the last 2 years school streets have been put in to manage traffic around schools and to make them safer and cleaner places for children and young people as they are going into or coming out of school. They were regulated by volunteers or staff from the school and operate at certain times of the day.

There had been lots of positive feedback from the schemes in place. Around 85% of people with a school street in their area have been keen to keep them.

Part of the success of the scheme was engagement with parent, children, schools and neighbourhoods.

The teams involved have a lot of learning now in this area, which is now scalable and funding was available to roll it out to other schools in the area.

It was reported that this was a good news story. More children travelling actively to school means a great success and headteachers had reportedly seen a difference in the children that actively travel to school.

In the following discussion a number of issues were raised by the committee which included:

• How scalable and how quickly can this be rolled out and how do residents perceptions change over time? Engagement with individuals and households that live in the areas and getting them involved was important. Scalability was contingent on funding to determine what can be done.  Four school streets achieved in a year and that’s the sort of level that could be rolled out in future years.  There was a £400,00 capital grant to go towards school streets.
• Impact around wider area of school streets. The are no displacement issues around school street, it makes people think about alternative travel.
• Can the roads be closed using signs rather than being manned by staff. There is ongoing learning and working with schools to work with parents to work the barriers to close the streets.
• Scope to push this further out from schools. As more school streets are created there is hope that more roads will be connected.
• Other schools are interested and currently a ranking position is being looked at for school that are interested.
• Beryl Bikes would be considered to provide opportunities for scooters to be used for alternative travel.
• The prioritisation of schools depends on budget and where they will do most good, there is no wish to exclude schools.
• There are measures to engage with schools to develop a travel plan. Part of the plan is to engage with parents, pupils and staff and find out why they drive. It was noted that not all schools will be suitable for school streets.
• Bikeability have gone into schools to do level 2 training with pupils.
• School streets are helping air quality, in that cars are not idling outside schools but it was very hard to accurately measure air quality.

RESOLVED that the progress to date be noted and the continuation of the roll out of School Streets across the three towns be endorsed.