Agenda item

e-Petition – Dropmore Infant School

Gita Street (GS) reiterated that she was the retired headteacher of the school and was part of Littleworth Community Road Safety Group who were with her as part of the call. GS introduced Heather Joy, a parent at the school, Judith Lovell, a local resident, Fiona Greenfield, a governor at the school and local resident, Kevin (surname unknow) a parent, Mrs Waugh, the current headteacher and Danielle Roberts (who was on a separate call).

GS stated that the group were addressing Littleworth Road’s safety issues – these were as follows:

•            High volume and speeding vehicles.

•            No safe pedestrian road crossing/

•            No safe pavements.

•            Poor parking control.

•            Poor road signage.

GS said that the Community Board had been made very aware of these issues for several years. In her six years as headteacher, GS had seen it as her duty of care to ensure that the children had a safe route into the school, and had reported the need for road safety improvements with the Community Board on several occasions.

GS confirmed that there was a huge volume of high speed traffic, there was no pedestrian road crossing, no safe pavements, poor parking control and poor road signage. GS asked the Board if this was good enough for children of a school in our area.

GS added that where there were no safe pavements, children had to walk on the road with high speed cars. There was no way to cross the road safely. There was poor parking control and the road signage was not very obvious, so families had to use the road and drivers were not aware of the potential dangers they were causing.

These issues had resulted in the e-petition being raised where 639 votes of support were received. GS believed this demonstrated the huge support of the local community and the extended local community.

GS said that the Board were asked to comment on the e-petition on 19th May 2023, so she presumed that it had been read and understood. In summary, GW advised that the e-petition was requesting safe pavements, a dedicated safe crossing, additional signage and speed reduction. GS understood that Neil O’Leary (NOL) was going to summarise the report, but she wanted to make very clear that their requests were non-negotiable. Now, after several years, the group were asking for the Board’s commitment to move this forward as soon as possible, and to conduct a feasibility study, with a view of implementing all the recommendations and all the conclusions.

GS added that safe pavements and a Pelican Crossing with lights were required from the infant school to the Montessori nursery as there were small children walking that road. Where the Montessori was located, a safe pavement from the pelican crossing to the Jolly Woodman was required so that parents could park and the roads were safe – this was also non-negotiable.

Furthermore, GS requested the unanimous support for the findings of the report and said that the group had some questions but would wait until NOL had shared the report. However, she wanted to make sure that young children walking to and from school had a safe journey and that currently they did not.

DA handed over to NOL who presented his report – see attached.

NOL advised that is was difficult to speak with total authority across the whole Council but advised the Board of the following:

The policy followed was outlined in the report. The Highways Authority report on injury collisions across the county every year. NOL said he reviewed annual and identified approximately 6,070 locations where people had been injured, which was his first port of call.  So, where there was budget available, a detailed analysis would be carried out to determine whether or not behaviour could be influenced.

If the Authority can reduce the severity or frequency of collisions, they will do this through a number of ways, some are physical measures (as outlined in the petition) and some are educational means where campaigns are run or training was provided.

In terms of this particular site and the policy, Dropmore Infant School did not meet the criteria for intervention. The report therefore has identified other means to signpost other potential opportunities for funding and a detailed understanding of the work or the duration of the measures that had been requested.

•NOL summarised the five recommendations in the report and requested the Community Board consider them, and if they were minded to, to move them forward. The recommendations were as follows:

1.Commission a signage review to enable the installation of additional warning signs. Wigwags were identified in the petition, but NOL said it was a bigger piece of work as it was to determine that the current signage was appropriate and met current sign regulations and legislation.

2.To commission a feasibility study to determine the construction costs of the footway which was described in the petition to facilitate the safe crossing along Littleworth Road to Montessori School.

3.To continue to monitor speeds recorded though Community Speed Watch and Thames Valley Police (TVP) who have set up a mobile enforcement site. NOL credited the residents and stakeholders involved as this was something that didn’t happen very often. NOL understood that TVP had visited the site three times in the past month which he thought was exceptional. NOL said he had tried to obtain some of the detail and wasn’t able to in advance of this meeting. Danielle Roberts added that a vehicle was reported doing 70mph along the road and that TVP informed the head of this. She also received an email to confirm that drivers were doing over 50mph.

4.To investigate avenues of funding. NOL said that he spoke to Section 106 colleagues in Development Management and any directorate that may have funding available. Currently there were no proposed developments that could contribute to the funding. It was recommended that NOL make contact with Slough as they may have something in the area that could be used.

5.To ensure these concerns were recorded in the Burnham Parish Neighbourhood Plan because it had been stated that this had been an ongoing issue for some time, and recording these outlines the recommendations and aspirations in a document of this nature which was useful.

GS stressed that this matter was not about when funding was available and said that the Community Board had known about these issues long enough to have the funding available today to start a feasibility study. GS said that they wanted a commitment today from the Board in that they were going to fund this. Everyone had received the report and a commitment was now required.

If funding needed to be made available and the Community Board couldn’t commit, GS asked who she should address to request this funding as everyone had had enough of being pushed aside.

DA enquired if a formal application had been made to the Community Board for this assessment. GS said an application had been made for a feasibility study. DA confirmed that he could not recollect a formal application being received.

CL did recall an application coming forward but felt there were other places that also had demands. She confirmed that safety measures were expensive but was very sympathetic and felt that something should be done as 70mph around those corners was not acceptable.  However, CL wasn’t sure how the money could be spread.

GS asked if we had to wait for the death of a child because the criteria then would be met and the Board would do something about it.

CL stated that this was the same for other schools.  GS believed that no other schools were on a road where the traffic was consistently travelling at 50mph with no pavement and no safe crossing. These were basic provisions that a Council had to provide for a school. GS stated there were historic changes that were affecting the traffic coming through, for example, a motorway, a service station and Sat Nav changes.  She added that this school has been suffering from an ongoing increase in traffic at high speeds, unlike schools in residential areas who did not have these same problems. GS said she could not think of a time that the Community Board had spent money on Littleworth Common and that it was their turn to be seen and to be supported financially.

DA confirmed that the Community Board was operating on a very limited budget of £98,000. A financial evaluation of the cost was required but DA thought it unlikely that the Board could make a substantial contribution. GS believed that a feasibility study was well within budget.

DA asked MD if she could liaise with GS to make a formal application for a feasibility study. MD said it would be no problem and that the recommendations and costings would be reviewed. However, the petition report was only received last week so it hadn’t been circulated to other Members of the Community Board, only the Lead Petitioner had received a copy. In-line with standard procedures, MD said it would be circulated to Members of the Board to give them an opportunity to read it, together with a copy of the minutes which would be formally published on Buckinghamshire Council’s website so that it was open and transparent. Normally, the report would have been circulated prior to the meeting, but because it was late, MD advised that there wasn’t the opportunity to do this.

MD referred to DA’s statement that highway projects were very expensive but appreciated how important this matter was to the group, as well as many other schools, as also alluded by CL.

There are 16 Community Boards and all reviewed their proposals at local level to agree what was feasible with the budget available, including other sources of funding which may be presented  MD stressed that the Board did not want to make false promises on what was possible to achieve from the five recommendations, but aimed to look at the most serious ones based on the data available.

GS enquired what the timescales would be as not all schools in the County had the same issues as Dropmore Infant School and thought it was unique. GS felt that this matter had been delayed for too long and wanted to see immediate action with the Community Board committing to spending money for the feasibility study for their road safety improvements. MD said she appreciated the passion and that we were conversing over the safety of children. She reiterated that she would review the recommendations and costings and that any scheme would have to go through a due diligence process including Buckinghamshire Highways. Therefore, no commitment could be made immediately.

GS highlighted that this had been brought to the Boards attention many years ago and yet nothing had been done to try and secure the funding required. MD confirmed that Community Boards had not been in place for years and only started three years ago. GS advised that she understood this but emphasised this was a Buckinghamshire Council issue, and if the Community Board could not deal with this she would go back to Buckinghamshire Council, even though this matter did not currently meet the criteria because they had been fortunate enough not to have any fatalities. MD stated that the Board was part of the Council and that it had not said it wouldn’t support it. The Board just required the time to look at the recommendations and costings and then it would be in a position to respond.

GS asked NOL if she could have a direct line of communication concerning the report as she had further questions. NOL advised that he was happy to discuss any aspect of the report, but the recommendations were unfunded so it was a case of MD determining the costs and investigating avenues of funding which he could not help with.

GS queried who she could contact about funding. MD said the Community Board would review as part of the recommendations and costings.

Jill Dax (JD) from Dorney Parish Council offered her support to GS and understood all of her justifiable concerns and frustrations. She appreciated the Community Board was limited to certain projects and that it was understandable that a scheme like this was going to be financially draining. JD didn’t though understand that as this was a school that the funding was not coming directly from Buckinghamshire Council. JD asked GS how much publicity she had done through the press and suggested she forward this to main government and push as far as she could. GS confirmed that if their non-negotiables were not met they would be contacting the press as they had in the past. GS referred to the press coverage that followed their walk to school week and thought the press would be keen to follow up their story and to hear that no further progress had been made.  JD also recommended contacting the local MP.

DA felt it was unfair to say that no progress had been made as NOL had prepared and presented his report. He stated that the Board had limited resources so did not accept the comments made.

Danielle Roberts (DR) asked NOL what happened to the speed data collected as it didn’t appear in the report. NOL confirmed that the data was received too late for it to be included in the report but said he would compare that with the police enforcement data. As the Lead Petitioner and lead of the Community Speed Watch team, DR said she would be interested to know what speed data NOL had collected. NOL said he would share – Action 05 (NOL).