Road safety around Shropshire schools to be examined to encourage children to walk and cycle
Plans to improve road safety outside county schools will be the specific focus of a new council investigation.
Shropshire Council's performance management scrutiny committee is expected to set up a 'task and finish' group, with a focus on children's safety getting to and from school.
The group will start work if the authority's performance and management scrutiny committee signs off on the plan on Wednesday.
The issue has been an increasing focus in recent years, with a 'school streets' trial launched at Coleham Primary School in Shrewsbury in November 2020 – it means the street on which the school is based is closed to traffic during pick up and drop off time.
Shrewsbury mother Angela Warren also began campaigning on the issue after her 14-year-old son Joe was injured when he was knocked off his bike in Radbrook last year.
Now the council group will set about considering what can be done to make parents feel safe enough to walk to school with their children.
The group had initially been tasked with looking at the entire issue of road safety, but decided after its first meeting to call for a narrowed scope – solely on the issue of road safety around schools.
A report from council scrutiny officer Danial Webb states: "Previous groups have conflated road safety with traffic danger and have primarily focussed on collisions.
"The group will scrutinise the nature of road safety in Shropshire from the viewpoint of children travelling to school, and explore options to make the highway safer, including footpaths and cycle paths.
"If we can make villages and towns in Shropshire where more parents feel safe enough to walk and cycle to school, then we will make a county where more people of all ages and abilities will feel safer on and alongside our roads."
As part of its work the group will look at school travel data, as well as examining the feelings of families, parents and children on road safety.
The investigation will also consider the effect of feeling unsafe when travelling to school on parents and children.
Other areas being looked at will be the current work being done by the council – and the evidence for it.
The committee will also examine projects in other parts of the UK.
