BackVehicle “exclusion zones” around schools call
As pupils across Scotland 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 Scotland has dropped from approximately 56% to 49%, with an enormous 28% 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 recently presented its 2011 Scottish Parliament Manifesto to MSPs, in which it called for 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 Scottish pupils will this year 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.
For more information about the Walk to School Campaign and WoW scheme or find out more about setting up a car free zone outside your school, please visit www.walktoschool.org.uk.
Published on: 13/08/2010
