Essex schools to limit car access to nearby roads during term time for pupil safety
School streets will operate at drop-off and pick-up times
Several streets outside Essex schools are to become pedestrian and cycling zones during term time in a bid to make areas around schools safer for pupils.
Essex County Council is developing 10 school streets, which will operate from Monday to Friday during the school term at drop-off and pick-up times.
A school street is an area transformed into a pedestrian and cycling zone outside of a school. They operate from Monday to Friday during the school term only at set times for drop-off and pick-up. Roads remain open to pedestrians, cyclists and those who are exempt from the closure.
So far, Essex has not gone straight to complete closure of school streets at dropping off and picking up times ‘largely because of political will’, the county council has heard.
Essex climate action committee – the body that is recommending how Essex can meet its carbon commitments – has recommended a goal of introducing 25 school streets by the end of the year, and an additional 20 per year thereafter.
Currently, Essex County Council is developing 10 school streets– including Sawyers Hall Lane in Brentwood - but hopes to develop more in the upcoming budget.
So far, none involve the entire closure of the street to traffic.
Cars from Grove House special needs school and St Helen’s Catholic Junior School still use Sawyers Hall Lane during dropping off and picking up times.
Tracey Vickers, head of sustainable transport at Essex County Council said Essex’s approach has differed from that of the ‘Hackney model’ which goes straight to closure and enforcement.
Hackney runs the UK’s largest School Streets programme – with 84 per cent of the borough’s primary schools and 15 per cent of secondary schools participating in a scheme that restricts vehicle access to nearby streets at pinch points during the school day.
She said: “We haven’t gone straight to closure and enforcement because of largely political will and actually there’s a lot to be said for starting perhaps lightly but bringing people with you.
“Nobody wants these things mandated on them. It challenges the need to have flexibility. we understand this so it’s about winning hearts and minds.”
She added: “Essex has adopted a slightly different approach to school streets than some other authorities in the UK... We felt it was a more sensitive and pragmatic way to proceed within Essex to take a slightly softer approach, at least initially.
“So we are concentrating on traffic management and behaviour change to start with – top down bottom up – and then we may progress to closures where there is local and political support.”
Jean Quinn, a former teacher and school campaigner from Colchester expressed her disappointment that school streets aren't being entirely closed to cars: “I’m just so disappointed that you’ve decided not to do that because these other measurements are very lukewarm.”