Major safety project for West Midlands school pupils to be launched

West Midlands Active Travel Commissioner Beccy Marston and Road Safety Commissioner Mat MacDonald will deliver ‘Kids Streets’ with pilots expecting to emerge in the coming months.

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The aim of the scheme is to encourage healthier modes of travel by youngsters, improve road safety and slash congestion at peak times.

Both Beccy and Mat said there were further benefits to be enjoyed for parents such saving money on fuel and freeing up time for themselves instead of spending time on the road.

Some of the measures that could come in through Kids Streets include restricting vehicle movements on roads around schools at the start and end of days or putting in new crossings.

Utilising new powers to tackle the widespread issue of pavement parking could also play a major role in the initiative.

Beccy said: “We hopefully will be piloting something, some concept designs for that in the next couple of months. We’re starting off looking at Birmingham and potentially Coventry.

“It’s still early doors but generally the idea is bringing together infrastructure investment with behaviour change support.

“We do lots of great stuff but it’s often quite disparate and we can’t measure impact on a regional level very well.

“We’re bringing in partners such as Sport England, public health and environment teams and saying ‘look, we’ve got this approach where we want to look at children’s health and wellbeing, their road safety and parents’ time’.

“If we can make parents comfortable in allowing their children to be able to travel to school independently rather than being ferried around in the car, that frees up not only a trip on the network but many more opportunities.

“If you’re comfortable with your child getting to school independently, are you comfortable with them getting to a sports club, the park, their friends house?

“When you multiply those trip generators, if we can make the infrastructure safe for parents to be comfortable that’s a massive win in us turning the tide on car use.

“The number one thing why people say they don’t walk, wheel or cycle is they don’t feel safe, so if we can do something about that, it’s a win-win for people.”

Mat added: “We are really excited to bring this forward in the next year where we are hoping to have some spades in the ground by the end of the year.

“We’ve been really inspired by the Parisian model of School Streets where there are permanent infrastructure changes to the streets outside places of education that create people first spaces.

“Hundreds of them have been rolled out and it’s made a real difference in terms of the safety of children, their ability to travel individually but also the sense of ownership the wider community has over public spaces in the areas they call home.

“There are so many positive impacts that will arise from getting our streets right. They are the building blocks of our communities.

“They are a reflection of our priorities as well. Streets that are safe for our children to walk, wheel and cycle will be safe for adults and be far happier, healthier and sustainable places.

“Until we create an environment where our children can be safe, our work is incomplete.

“That’s why Beccy and I have made children our main focus. We will continue to work as hard as we can to ensure they are safe.”