BackVehicle “exclusion zones” called for
As pupils across England and Wales prepare to go back to school, national pedestrian charity Living Streets is calling for a ban on car parking inside playgrounds and around the school gates, to encourage a safer environment for walking to school.
Over the past decade, the number of children who walk to school in the UK has dropped from approximately 56% to 48%, with an enormous 43% being driven to school in cars. As pupils return to school this week for another academic year, Living Streets is calling on schools and local authorities to implement car free zones around the school gates preventing parents from parking, dropping their children off or waiting in their cars. This would limit the amount of congestion and pollution around schools, and make it safer for children who won’t have to dash in between moving cars to get to their classrooms.
National charity Living Streets works to create safe, attractive and enjoyable streets around the UK. They run the highly successful Walk to School campaign, which encourages over two million children, parents and teachers to give walking to school a go.
As it stands, around one in five cars on the road at peak time in the morning is on the school run and around the school gates the ever increasing numbers of cars poses a real danger to child pedestrians.
Living Streets’ 2010 manifesto calls for local targets to be set to increase the number of children walking to school and the creation of park and stride points at least 10 minutes’ walk from the school gate with identified safe routes.
Tony Armstrong, Chief Executive of Living Streets said:
“We strongly believe an exclusion zone around schools is worthwhile for many reasons: it stops parents being stuck in congestion but also reduces the potential for collisions around the school gates.
“We would really like to see schools and local councils introduce and enforce parking and waiting restrictions and promote more ‘park and stride’ schemes to give children the chance to get some much-needed fresh air and activity into their day whilst easing congestion around the school gates. This isn’t about making life difficult for parents but creating a safe and pleasant environment around the school, whilst helping children lead more active lifestyles in the face of rising obesity levels.
“Many schools and councils have attempted to tackle this problem. As pupils go back to school, it’s time to redouble our efforts. We need to take action now to make children more physically active, to prevent storing up health problems later in life."
Thousands of pupils from across the UK will be taking part in the largest regular walk to school reward scheme in the world, ‘Walk once a Week’ (WOW) once they return to school. Each year, the Living Streets WOW campaign gets more than 212,000 children across the UK to walk to school, with pupils recording how often they walk and winning a badge if they walk four times or more in a month.
Get your school on board and children walking to school – to sign up, and create safe walking zones around your school, please visit www.walktoschool.org.uk
For any media enquiries, please contact Anna Powell, Press and Communications Coordinator on 0207 377 4914 or email anna.powell@livingstreets.org.uk. For any out of hours press enquiries, please call 07545 209865.
What is your view? Join our discussion here.
Notes to editors
Living Streets’ Walk to School Campaign is responsible for Walk to School Week in May, Walk to School Month in October and the Walk Once a Week (WoW) scheme. Visit www.walktoschool.org.uk for more information
About Living Streets
Living Streets is the national charity that stands up for pedestrians. With our supporters we work to create safe, attractive and enjoyable streets, where people want to walk.
We have been the national voice for pedestrians throughout our 80 year history. In the early years, our campaigning led to the introduction of the driving test, pedestrian crossings and 30mph speed limits. Since then our ambition has grown. Today we influence decision makers nationally and locally, run successful projects to encourage people to walk, and provide specialist consultancy services to help reduce congestion and carbon emissions, improve public health, and make sure every community can enjoy vibrant streets and public spaces.
Published on: 02/09/2010
