Criticism at safety snub

A decision not to install a pedestrian crossing for pupils in Southwell, despite agreeing to put one at a Nottingham school, has been criticised.

Lowe’s Wong infants’ and junior schools, on Queen Street, and Holy Trinity Infants’ School, Westgate, still do not have a crossing patrol despite several recruitment attempts.

Staff and parents fear for the safety of the children outside the schools, which are on busy main roads.

The town’s county councillor, Mr Bruce Laughton, told Southwell Town Council planning committee that a school in Arnold would be getting a pedestrian crossing.

He read out a letter from the county council’s senior road safety officer, Miss Xena Oliver, to a parent of a child at Richard Bonington Primary School, Calverton Road, confirming that a crossing would be installed outside the school.

One of the reasons given for the decision was because they had not been able to recruit a crossing patrol.

Parents at the school had asked Mr Laughton, the Conservative party’s prospective parliamentary candidate for Gedling, to lobby for a pedestrian crossing on their behalf.

Mr Laughton said he would ask the county council why there was not one in Southwell as well.

A town councillor, Mrs Beryl Prentice, said: “If they can have a crossing, why can’t we have one?”

Mrs Beryl Prentice said the county council was applying double standards.

She said it was discriminating unfairly to have a pedestrian crossing in one place because of a lack of a crossing patrol when there were other schools in the same position without one.

“What is good enough for one school in Nottinghamshire should be good enough for any school in Nottinghamshire,” she said.

A county council spokesman said: “The proposed crossing site at Richard Bonington School is being installed as part of the county council’s Safer Routes To School programme.

“This site now meets the criteria for a zebra crossing under this programme due to the increased school population, plus the additional residential development in the area.

“The county council’s road safety team considers each site on its own merits and officers will continue to monitor and review the situation at Southwell, while maintaining efforts to recruit a school crossing patrol to the vacant post.

“To retain the effectiveness of this service requires the support of the whole school community.”