CHILDREN in primary schools close to Bolton town centre are almost twice as likely to be injured in road traffic accidents than other areas of the town.

And a new road safety officer is to be appointed to try and make youngsters and their parents more street-wise.

Calculations based on data including traffic flows and specific locations estimate that more than 10 children a year could become a casualty near 11 schools in Central and Derby wards - which is four children more than the national average.

Bolton Council wants to reduce this risk with better education and will recruit a road safety training officer to work specifically with those schools, thanks to a Government grant of £90,000 over three years.

The Government's Road Safety Strategy, 'Tomorrow's Roads - Safer for Everyone' has highlighted the need to increase child road safety training nationally, particularly in deprived areas where children can be as much as six times more likely to be injured.

They have pledged to reduced the number of accidents involving children by 50 per cent by 2010.

The schools involved in the project are Chalfont Community Primary, Gaskell Community School, Wolfenden, Bolton Parish, St Matthew's, Clarendon, Pikes Lane, Sunning Hill, SS Peter and Paul, St William and St Thomas primaries.

Police statistics show there were 36 injuries to children, two serious, after accidents in these areas last year.

Once in post, the officer will be calling on parents, teachers and other volunteers for help in taking the children out to physically point out the dangers.

The greater risk is due to the schools' locations on or near main roads into town.

But little provision for off-street parking also creates a hazard to children trying to cross the road in areas where they are more likely to walk to school.

Headteacher Keith Ellis of Pikes Lane Primary on Gibraltar Street says more needs to be done to educate children.

He said: "The situation around here is not good and I have worries about the safety of the children and their parents because of the state of the roads. There are no pavements on three streets surrounding the school building.

"We have lost a lot of the national initiatives about road safety such as the Green Cross Code man and I would like to see some of these returned and built upon locally."

Chalfont Community School headteacher Gwen Acton says school can not do enough to teach children the importance of road safety.

"Accidents here in the past have involved children crossing the road in the wrong place." she said.

"But it is also about getting parents involved."

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) reports that child pedestrian casualties peak at age 12 and are more common in boys. More than a fifth of all child accidents happen on the school journey.

Training in the 11 schools will be based on what is known as the 'kerbcraft' scheme, starting children off with the foundations of road safety training that can then be built upon.

RoSPA spokesman Roger Vincent says the model was developed in Scotland and tried on Drumchapel housing estate in Glasgow, where children were seven times more at risk.

"Results have shown that these children performed significantly better after training, so the scheme does works," he said.

An officer will be recruited before 2002 and will then be calling on parents for help.