School streets could be cleared from traffic to reduce pollution
Streets next to schools could be closed to vehicles during pick-up and drop-off times to improve safety and reduce air pollution, if preliminary plans are implemented.
“School Streets” have been introduced throughout the UK, encouraging children to walk and cycle in and discouraging parents from congregating in their cars.
A motion by Councillor Thomas Janke asked Telford and Wrekin Council to start consulting on introducing the initiative at interested schools in the borough.
It was referred to the Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee, who agreed to set up a multi-member workshop to explore it.
Chairman Angela McClements said the recent inquest into nine-year-old Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah’s death showed how important the issue was.
Inner South London coroner Philip Barlow said Ella had been exposed to “excessive” levels of pollution. She lived 25 metres from the South Circular Road in Lewisham, and was the first person in the UK to have “air pollution” listed as a cause of death.
Cllr McClements said this “landmark ruling” showed “air pollution does have an impact on children’s health”.
Cllr Janke’s motion was originally tabled at a full session of Telford and Wrekin Council on Thursday, November 26.
It asked the council to “work collaboratively with councillors, schools and local partners to swiftly identify schools in the borough that could benefit from a ‘School Streets’ scheme”, implement them as soon as possible and promote cycling and walking around schools both covered and not covered.
The motion noted that School Streets are cropping up around that UK, and London went from having 81 School Streets schemes in place in April to 383 by November, it added.
A similar motion, passed by Shropshire Council in the summer, said others had been implemented or trialled in cities including Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Manchester.
Cllr Janke, who represents Newport South and East, said the scheme brought “healthier, more alert children, a demonstrably more stable environment on the school run and, of course, less carbon emissions” and would “enable social distancing outside the school with increased pedestrian space and improve the air quality and environment”.
He said: “Members will recall in 2019 that this council promised to tackle climate change in our borough with an aim to become carbon-neutral by 2030.
“School Streets could represent a huge shift in reducing our borough’s carbon footprint, using measures under our own considerable powers and making smart use of experimental traffic orders when necessary.
“The heads of local schools in my ward – Newport Juniors, Newport Infants and Burton Borough – are on board and want School Streets around their schools to tackle 30 minutes of idling cars around their gates.
“The head of William Reynolds Primary, in Woodside, the other side of the borough, would approve of the scheme in order to stop speeding up to the school gates.”
He said he was confident other leaders would support measures outside their schools.
Cllr Janke was unable to address the committee because of a clash with a town council meeting, but fellow Liberal Democrat Karen Tomlinson spoke in his place.
She pointed out that Shropshire’s first School Street, launched last month at Shrewsbury’s Coleham Primary School, had been “widely hailed as a huge success”.
The committee instructed council officers to put together a timetable for scoping meetings involving members of other scrutiny committees and other bodies.
