St Peter's CE Primary School, Farnworth, to trial ‘School Streets’

St Peter's CE Primary School, Farnworth, is to trial closing off  two or three streets around the school during the busy start and finish times to help make the streets safer for children - and also residents.

Headteacher Lynn Williams said: “We’ve got three aims, firstly we want to keep our streets safe, we want to reduce the amount of air pollution and traffic and we want to increase the amount of physical exercise that our children engage with.”

Read more: St Peter's CE Primary School explores School Street scheme

Tuesday Trotters with BWFC players (Image: Agency)

Chris Reddy, Founder of Bright Leaders was present at the meeting to discuss the scheme.

He explained that children felt that the streets around the school at drop off and pick up time are sometimes unsafe.

He said: “The children also came up with the idea of Tuesday Trotters where they walk to school on Tuesday’s.

“The idea was that parents could park on the nearby Tesco car park rather than parking around the streets and walk the three minutes it takes to get to the school.”

Organisations who are involved with the scheme are Let’s Keep Bolton Moving, Transport for Greater Manchester, Bolton Council, Bolton Community Trust and also Tesco who gave permission to park on their car park at their store located on Long Causeway.

The trials for the ‘School Streets’ will initially take place on Tuesdays and prospective dates are 20 June, 27 June, 4 July, 11 July and 18 July.

The morning slot would be from 8.15am – 9.15am and the afternoon slot would be from 3pm – 3.45pm as these are the peak times when it’s busiest.

Read more: Bury launch ‘School Street' at Guardian Angels RC Primary School

In terms of road closures, there are two options.

Option one is to close parts of Lark Street, Bradford Street and Alexandra Street.

Option two is to just close parts of Lark Street and Bradford Street.

The idea is that parents would then park on Tesco and walk to the school instead of parking on the surrounding streets that could be affected by the immediate streets being closed off at school time.

Residents of these streets will be given a permit card and will still be able to drive down their street during the closed times as will emergency service vehicles.

Chris said: “School streets are also meant to increase residents’ ability to get to their own houses by removing all the excess cars.

“It’s a small behaviour change, and it will take time for people to get used to using Tesco’s car park instead.”

Some residents were worried that the problem would just move further afield to other streets near to the school like Newport Street or Phoenix Street, however the trial scheme would have to start to see if this would be an issue.

Read more: Plans for road restrictions at Markland Hill Primary School

Another resident said that she doesn’t think the Tesco parking would work as some parents don’t acknowledge the zigzags on the roads near the school therefore, they might not be willing to park on Tesco.

Chris added: “These street closures will initially be a test and learn scheme and it may become apparent that closing these streets could cause a bigger problem.

“The options aren’t set in stone and are able to be changed.”

The only way that the scheme will work is to get the community to get involved as people would need to man the barriers and put them out and away.

Lynn said: “The issue is is that we have a big problem now.

“Even if we are making it just a little bit better, not entirely better and not eradicated, we are making it better as we do have a significant problem.

“If we’re not making it worse, it’s better.

“We’re not seeking a perfect solution, we’re seeking a solution which takes us nearer to it being safer, cleaner and children being healthier.

“Even if we’re only five per cent nearer to that, that’s better than being five per cent further away.

“It won’t be a perfect solution, but it isn’t now.”