Haringey Council have at last produced a serious proposal for School Streets in the borough - details are here (starts p.80). Its purpose is to restrict access by motor vehicles to streets in which primary schools are located at the start and end of the school day, in order to increase road safety and reduce air pollution for children. Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras will be used to enforce the scheme, and fine drivers who are not exempt (these are disabled drivers, householders living in the street in question, and of course emergency vehicles). See the bottom of this post for their explanation of why this is particularly urgent at this time.
It is to be funded by £1.5m capital funding over a 5-year period, which they hope will be match-funded from a variety of other sources. If not, it will have to be scaled back. 22 schools have been designated as in urgent need of such measures, including Coldfall, Alexandra, and St Pauls Catholic Primary school in our area. These will be implemented immediately, and others at a rate of 3 a year. They have been grouped in three batches in order of priority (depending on budgets), and Rhodes Avenue and St Martin of Porres Roman Catholic primary school are in Batch 3 (for which funding has not been confirmed). Other measures are being proposed for Bounds Green school, since it is not considered appropriate to restrict Bounds Green Road in this way.
Why the introduction of School Streets are particularly urgent at this time - quotation from Haringey's plan:
[p.84] 6.1 At the beginning and end of the school day, it is possible to see the same scenario being played out outside schools across the Borough. Children who are travelling to and from school must navigate roads that are congested with motor vehicles, often concentrated directly in front of the school gates, making the last few metres of their journey to school, which should be safe and easy, the most hazardous.
6.2 There is an increasing numbers of pupils across the country arriving to school on foot or by bike,and yet,they are still being put at risk by motor vehicles. In Haringey, one in four children travel to school by car. This is taken as an average from the schools that report travel data (data from 2018/19 academic year).This use is higher than the London average and puts at risk the thousands of children travelling around the borough at peak times on foot or by bike. Even a relatively small number of vehicles, when combined with high numbers of pedestrians and cycles can create a hazardous environment, resulting in road safety issues, traffic incidents and close calls around the school gates. These issues are often highlighted by teachers and parents.
6.3.Many parents feel that the unpleasant and unsafe street environment forces them to drive to keep their children safe, with implications for children’s activity levels and consequently their health. These vehicles are often a combination of school-run traffic as well as through-traffic,using routes past schools as part of their daily journeys. The situation is worst at the school gates where it all comes together: parents dropping off or picking upchildren, high numbers of young, vulnerable pedestrians and cyclists, local residents leaving or accessing their homes as well as through traffic trying to get past.
6.4.Restricting vehicle movement outside the school gates makes the space safer, less polluted and more pleasant. …
6.6 Alongside this many teachers in Haringey are reporting an increase in vehicular traffic around the schools. This has been caused by parents / carers dropping children off at the schools. And wider vehicular traffic increases which are being seen as a result of reduction of capacity on public transport and fear around COVID transmission. Managing this increase in road traffic has caused conflict between the drivers and people who want safe space around the schools. This conflict has drawn in teachers and resulted in accidents around at least two schools in the borough in the first month of the school term.
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