Minutes:
Question:
Shinfield Road is a very busy and dangerous road and difficult for people to cross, therefore many parents’ resort to transporting their children to and from Crosfields school by car increasing the traffic problem for local residents. When asked about this last year Councillor Fishwick said that he had looked at the site and that insufficient numbers were crossing the road to make this viable. This is a ridiculous assessment, the reason people don’t cross the road is because it is so dangerous. It is also an insult to parents who want to walk their children to school or who would be happy for them to walk or cycle unattended without the need to cross a busy road. This Council is meant to be trying to increase cycling and walking to school and this is an obvious opportunity to do that.
Now a 7 year old boy, has been knocked down by a cyclist who was overtaking a bus stopped by the South entrance. Please can you urgently reconsider your decision?
Answer:
Thank you, Pauline, for your question.
We are very sorry to hear of the incident involving a 7-year-old boy, we hope he makes a full and speedy recovery.
As you know the Council has a limited budget, it does now and did when the Conservatives were in administration. Therefore, locations for crossing sites are prioritised, using an assessment process that includes data on the number of people crossing the road, the ease to cross the road and the number and speed of vehicles, and local factors such as being near a school in the area are also considered. Doing it this way ensures that our limited funds are directed to those sites where there is the highest need, and not who shouts loudest. We are committed to promoting safe walking and cycling routes to schools where funding is available, however, with the limited budgets we have, I am sure you would agree we must prioritise the locations with the highest demand. Unfortunately, there are other locations within the Borough which come out of the assessment as a higher priority, and so I cannot at the moment commit to funding this scheme.
Supplementary Question:
Thank you for that answer, Paul, it is rather disappointing. I am very surprised that somewhere that has actually been an accident that required an ambulance and paramedics, where the paramedics saying that they find it very difficult to actually deal with the accident because of people driving so dangerously and fast whilst they were trying to sort it out, is not a priority. I would also like to ask you have you actually asked the School if they would be willing to help fund a crossing, because I believe they might be interested in talking to you about that and it would be a shame if the Council just dismissed this suggestion out of hand without looking at what could be actually done to fund it?
Supplementary Answer:
Unfortunately, from time-to-time accidents do happen on the highway network and pedestrian personal injury accidents are taken into account. This is something which is new because it has only happened in the last few weeks, so if it is reassessed at any particular time that particular accident would be taken into account. As I said before, everything is evidence based, so we are looking at that type of information such as personal injury accidents. There is a system and a process that we go through. We have not asked the School for any contribution towards it, but it is something that we could do in the future once everything is reassessed.