Guernsey

Contact

Mrs Pat Wisher
Tel: 01481 268088
Email
patwisher@cwgsy.net
Maison Du Rocher
Rue De La Vallee
Torteval
Guernsey
GY8 0PW
LIVING STREETS GUERNSEY (STEPS) ACHIEVEMENTS SO FAR

STEPS was launched in May 2002 to coincide with Guernsey's Car Free Day. One of its key objectives is to work with all groups and agencies in the island to highlight pedestrian issues.

STEPS is a branch of Living Streets in the UK (previously known as the Pedestrians Association). The Living Streets manifesto goes much further than simply pedestrian issues. It seeks to influence urban planning to improve the environment for everyone, and especially to bring community life back into our streets. Therefore STEPS has been taking every opportunity to apply this manifesto in Guernsey - as well as tackling pedestrian safety issues that are very specific to Guernsey.

Latest News from Guernsey

NEWS FROM THE GUERNSEY BRANCH OF LIVING STREETS

STEPS Living Streets has been at the forefront of the campaign for safe routes to a new Secondary School and Secondary Special Needs School which is being built in the north of the island in the parish of St. Sampsons. This 37 million pound project will accommodate 720 Secondary Students and 130 Special Needs students. The campus is in a most inappropriate position surrounded by some of the worst roads in the island.

STEPS convened a meeting last June and with the aid of a Power Point presentation it outlined its concerns and put forward several suggestions for solutions. The meeting was attended by the Ministers of our Education and Environment Department together with many other politicians and local residents. We gained major publicity in the local media.

Students attending the new St. Sampson's High School will come from two schools which are being closed - one in the north of the island and one in the south. Students from St. Peter Port (Guernsey's main Town) in the south will no longer be in walking distance of their new school unless we can do something about it. The solution is to open up some walkways through the "green lung" between St. Peter Port and St. Sampsons. This route would enable St. Peter Port students to walk through the green lanes and enter the back of the campus. In spite of objections to opening up a back entrance on security and safety grounds, STEPS' presentation in June resulted in a U turn by the Education Department.

Since then STEPS members, with the help of islanders, have been investigating the green lanes and seeking a route through privately owned land to the new campus. We are almost there!

At the same time we have been campaigning for a one way system in the surrounding roads, together with a wide pavement and traffic calming. These roads either do not have a pavement at all, or they have a very narrow pavement which vehicles constantly mount. So far the needs of motorists have taken preference over the needs of school children. Guernsey is just 25 square miles so any diversion caused by making a one-way system would add no more than a few minutes to a motorists' journey time.

This week the roads around the new campus have been closed for four months to install a new set of traffic lights and other works. We are hoping that talk of gridlock if we make a one way system will be seen as highly exaggerated during the complete closure of the road. With luck, with a new Environment Department coming into office on the 1st May (we are in the middle of elections), we hope that sense will prevail and the road system will be made one way in order to give students a safe wide pavement for their walk to school.

Pat Wisher