Image credit ITV
There's qite a cool initiative taking place at St. Martins School latr this month with the introdction of a "School Street" Initiative, that should make it safer and easier for walking and cycling to the school.
School Street schemes are commonly used in other parts of the world and involve a road outside a school having a temporary restriction on motorised traffic at drop-off and pick-up times. The St Martin’s School Street will launch on Wednesday 29th March, with Route Des Coutures closed to traffic (except for cyclists and those vehicles accessing properties) on weekdays from:
• 8.30am-9am
• 2.45pm-3.15pm
The scheme will be reviewed after a week, which aligns with the break for Easter holidays, and extended should it prove successful.
Clare Giles, St Martin’s Primary School Headteacher, said:
‘We are a UNICEF gold Rights Respecting School, which is something we’re very proud of, and part of what helped us achieve a gold award was ensuring our pupils have a voice and that voice influences decisions about how the school is run. This is also a key part of Our Education Strategy.
‘Through our “Rights Squad”, pupils expressed significant concern about the risks they had encountered during pick-up and drop-off outside the school and a determination to do something to bring about positive change. I committed to supporting them following that feedback and I’m grateful for the help of Traffic and Highway Services in developing the St Martin’s School Street scheme.
‘Our school has 550 pupils, which makes us the largest primary school in the island, with more pupils than two secondary schools also, which means we have approximately 1,000 people travelling to and from school every day at drop-off and pick-up. That is a lot of people on the roads around school, with Route Des Coutures narrow and without many safe spaces for pedestrians.
‘We had an incident last term involving a cyclist and vehicle and pupils routinely report near misses. I am very proud of our young people for not only raising this issue with maturity and conviction, but also being heavily involved in the creation of what we hope will be a solution.’