GM schoolchildren are being “left behind” on safer School Streets
- FOI request reveals just 2% of schools in Greater Manchester have a ‘School Street’ compared to 20% in Greater London.
- Colourful pop-up booth in St Peter’s Square shows the difference a ‘School Street’ can make to lowering your heart rate on the school run.
- Around 25 school streets across the city region compared to 634 in Greater London as parents call for city leaders to prioritise making streets safe, cleaner, and less stressful.
Local councillors and members of the public are invited to join campaigners today to experience idling cars, illegal parking and traffic jams in a film booth while
attached to a heart monitor. They will then be shown a peaceful school street, as part of Clean Cities’ ‘Streets for Kids’ campaign to improve the commute of almost half a million Greater Manchester school children
The aim of the stunt is to demonstrate the need for safer streets for children and to ask city leaders to prioritise making Greater Manchester streets safe to cycle, walk, and scoot to school. Anyone can take part in the ‘stress test’, just head to St Peter's Square, Manchester, from 11am.
School Streets are where the road space outside a school is temporarily closed to traffic during pick-up and drop-off time, proven to reduce exposure to air pollution and road danger.
A Freedom of Information request submitted by Clean Cities reveals around 25 school streets are either on trial or permanently in place in the whole of Greater
Manchester, out of 1,182 state primary and secondary schools. Rochdale is the only borough who reported no current school streets.
Manchester has 7 streets under trial, although there is a long way to go until reaching the council’s ambition of a school street in every ward - 32 in total.
Greater Manchester’s school children risk being left behind. Almost 20% of schools in Greater London benefit from a school street (634 schools), as revealed in new data collected by Clean Cities partner Mums for Lungs. In the London Borough of Islington, over 50% of schools have ‘school streets’
Pre-pandemic, trips to education generated an estimated 730,000 trips by car per school day. Walking, wheeling or cycling to school would clear roads and reduce daily stress for parents, residents and teachers.
Polling data commissioned by the Clean Cities Campaign last year found that parents of children aged 18 and under in Great Britain are three times as likely to
find the school run stressful as meeting their line manager at work (22% vs 7%) and almost twice as likely as commuting to work (12%).
Cazz Ward, from WalkRide GM, said:
“We are happy to see home to school travel as one of the key priorities for active travel in the refreshed GM Active Travel Mission but there is a real gap between
ambition and reality when it comes to actually establishing safer, cleaner, greener streets around our schools. Cycling, scooting, wheeling and walking to school sets children up right for a day for a day of learning, it is good for the planet, and it's beneficial to their mental and physical health.”
Liz Godfrey, from Mums for Lungs, said:
“What’s not to like about school streets? They reduce traffic and pollution, create a safer environment for children, guardians and residents, improve health and
wellbeing, and prevent crowding at the school gates. In all, they make a real difference.”
Sarah Rowe, UK Campaigner, Clean Cities Campaign explained,
“There are some great initiatives across the region, but they are almost all reliant on volunteers from the school and local community to make them happen. We want to celebrate their efforts, but recognise this isn’t a fair or feasible way to make our streets safer for kids in the long term.
We hope that councils and the GMCA will put more resources into School Streets to make them permanent and reclaim space in our communities for safer school
journeys. It also needs to be much clearer how parents or schools interested in implementing a school street can take this up with their council.”
