Frustration as school road closure scheme scrapped in Telford before being trialled

Telford & Wrekin Council announced its decision to not implement a School Streets Scheme in the borough during its last Children & Young People Scrutiny Committee on December 6.

A 'School Street' is a road outside a school with a temporary restriction on motorised traffic at school drop-off and pick-up times. The restriction applies to school traffic and through traffic.

Under the scheme, local authorities can use powers to implement traffic management orders to turn a street into a pedestrian and cycle zone - creating a 'School Street'.

An 18-month School Streets pilot at six schools in the Shropshire Council area is set to begin in February next year - including outside schools in Market Drayton and Whitchurch.

Newport Councillor Thomas Janke previously welcomed the scheme in Telford & Wrekin as a "promising initiative" aimed at ensuring the safety of pupils and for promoting sustainable transport options.

But the council said road closures would likely have an impact on local communities and reassured residents that investment was being made into road safety near schools and promoting active transport to education.

Councillor Eileen Callear said: “Telford & Wrekin Council takes safety outside our schools very seriously, as shown by investment of £600,000 into safety schemes outside schools in the past five years – in spite of cuts to government funding.

“When School Streets was discussed at the Children and Young People’s Scrutiny Committee, it was acknowledged that school road closures would have a likely impact on local communities given the potential knock-on effects of traffic being displaced into other roads; had the potential to present further budget pressures for schools and would create staffing challenges. These were all issues raised by the initial working group of members in 2021.

“However, we made a commitment to pilot a number of active travel schemes over the current academic year, and are currently working with four local schools to engage with parents, break down barriers to active travel and improve road safety awareness.

“This project is helping to identify what works and what doesn’t and understand better the potential issues with implementing school travel schemes in different areas. Information will then be used to possibly inform future initiatives.”

Councillor Janke described the decision as "huge disappointing" and said it overlooks the "potential benefits such a scheme has to offer".

He added: “Despite numerous meetings with stakeholders and officers from other Local Authorities who’ve already successfully implemented such schemes, despite utilising many hours of council officer time and support from across the political spectrum, despite keen interest from the schools themselves, the conclusion has been to scrap the initiative before we’ve had a chance to see its effectiveness through a trial.

“Neglecting to implement such measures might compromise the overall safety and health of both pupils and the community in favour of plans that have previously had relatively little uptake such as walking buses and cycling lessons.

“The local authority must be much bolder in providing safer spaces for school for pupils outside of our schools, rebrands of existing measures is merely paying lip service, ticking boxes.”