News / bristol city council
Funding to be cut from 24 school crossing patrols across Bristol
Bristol’s youngest generation is next to be affected by cuts that will see 21 schools across the city lose crossing patrols.
Council plans to axe half of the existing lollipop services in a bid to save £155,000 from the ever-stretched public purse met with outrage in June, as parents slammed cost-cutting proposals that they said “could put children’s lives at risk”.
Renewed proposals being put forward are to scale back the cuts, meaning that funding will not be withdrawn from 18 of the patrols previously at risk – however, 24 sites at 21 Bristol schools are still set to lose their patrols.
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“Providing safe routes to school is very important and a role the council takes seriously,” said Mhairi Threlfall, Bristol City Council’s cabinet member for transport.
“At the same time, we have a responsibility to ensure we prioritise school crossing patrols which are most needed and at our cabinet meeting we will be deciding whether these proposals achieve that.
“The proposals do identify reducing the funding available for school crossing patrols but this approach is in line with the national criteria set by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) and the assessments of priorities by the council’s road safety team.
“We want to maintain our commitment to helping children to walk to school safely and we will consider proposals for additional support at our busiest junctions.”
Children and parents from Hillcrest Primary School protest against plans to cut the road crossing patrol
Cabinet papers outline potential health implications of the cuts that are likely to discourage parents from allowing children to walk to school and also the negative impact on sustainability if traffic increases as a result.
The plan is to mitigate against these knock-on effects by installing traffic calming measures at sites where they don’t already exist and encourage parents and carers to organise schemes such as ‘walking buses’ to help children walk to school safely.
Hillcrest Primary School is among the sites due to keep its lollipop man after children, parents, governors and members of the public took to the streets with placards to protest against cutting the patrol on the busy Wells Road.
Speaking at the time, dad Hugh Reynolds said he was “disgusted” by the proposed cuts that he argued were coming at a cost of children’s safety.
The crossing by Hillcrest Primary School has now been saved, but others are less fortunate
Other schools were less fortunate, with some – including Barton Hill Academy and Waycroft Academy due to lose two crossing patrols.
The council is proposing that any future requests for a new school crossing patrol would be assessed according to the RoSPA criteria and an assessment fee would be charged to the school. Sites that meet the criteria would be added to a waiting list to be prioritised by need.
A final decision on the proposals will be made at a cabinet meeting on Monday, November 4.
Read more: ‘Crossing patrol cuts are putting lives of Bristol schoolchildren at risk’
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