LOCAL Councillors at Croft have joined parents in their opposition to Warrington Borough Council’s proposed changes to suggested school commute walking routes for children.
Cllr. Matt Smith (Culcheth, Glazebury and Croft) explains “if a child has to walk over three miles to their nearest secondary school or if the route is considered too dangerous, they are provided a free school bus pass. “This has always been the case for many children in Croft who have to walk over three miles to reach Culcheth High School
“This year, Warrington Borough Council has chosen to reassess all walking routes previously considered too dangerous for school children to use. Some routes that were considered hazardous in the past are now rated as ‘available’ for use by children.
“The council are now suggesting that children can walk along some of these routes to reduce the commute to under three miles so that a free bus pass does not have to be provided. Unfortunately, neither parents nor Councillors consider some of these newly assessed routes to be acceptable for a child’s walk to school.”
Croft Parish Councillor Cheyvonne Bower added: “The borough council is telling parents that their children should walk down steps from Churchfield on to Lady Lane. Over 100 metres of the Lady Lane route is unlit, has no pavement and the council’s own data shows that the average speed of vehicles there is well over the speed limit.
“The Council suggests that relatively low traffic numbers mean that the walk will be OK, but clearly it only takes a single car to hit a child. With bushes right to the edge of the road there is nowhere for a pedestrian to escape from oncoming vehicles if they haven’t been seen. Nobody who knows this road would consider allowing Children to walk the route, especially as we enter winter and they could be walking in the dark with poor weather further reducing visibility. It would be an accident waiting to happen and is completely avoidable. It is notable that the Council call the route ‘available’ but will never go so far as to call it safe. I’m asking for Warrington Borough Council to reverse this decision.”
Matt added: “The Council has a priority to ‘protect the most vulnerable’. Suggesting that children walk along Lady Lane in the dark to get to and from school is clearly putting them at risk. I support Council officers making sensible decisions to save money where they can, but this proposal cannot go unchallenged.
“Some parents have already appealed against the Council’s decision. I hope that the appeals panel will make the right call and reverse the decision, acknowledging that this proposed walking route is too dangerous for our children.”
Councillors Cheyvonne Bower and Matt Smith on Lady Lane at dusk, demonstrating the poor visibility, lack of street lights and absence of pavement.
10 Comments
Thank you for raising this issue. This decision by the council to deem Lady Lane an acceptable route for children to walk to school is an accident waiting to happen. In my opinion WBC have manipulated the data to produce a report that benefits only themselves without any consideration to the safety of the children.
Thankyou for highlighting this poor and potentially dangerous decision. No child should be put at risk getting to school when that risk is avoidable.
The route is extremely hazardous- pot holes, flooding, poor lighting, lack of pavements, without mentioning the speed some cars drive through Croft. It’s an outrage – Warrington council manipulating info and putting cost above the safety of children.
Thank you for raising this, expecting our children to walk via lady lane (especially in winter- dark and poorly lit) is an accident waiting to happen. We appealed and were unsuccessful- shame on you WBC !
We shouldn’t be expecting children to walk down lady lane, no pavement part of the way and poorly lit. We should be encouraging them to go to school not asking them to do a nearly 6 mile round trip to get there and back. WBC need to reasses and get thos changed.
Thank you to Matt and Cheyvonne and also to the parents making a stand against this thoughtless and dangerous decision. The borough council have tried to discourage ourselves to appeal so it’s great to hear other parents are also appealing.
This is an absolute joke, I’m sure members of Warrington Borough Council wouldn’t want their kids walking down Lady Lane with no pavement, streetlights and a blind corner!! I will be appealing the decision for my son and will keep appealing until they get sick of me! Absolutely appalling!!
The route along Lady Lane is not acceptable as the report is massively flawed
Thank you for raising this issue. Lady Lane is poorly lit, floods regularly in the winter and there’s no pavement for a large section of it. How WBC can deem this a ‘safe’ walking route is unbelievable.
It’s happening all over the town and it is sickening to think it could take a death for them to use common sense just because you can see a path on google does not make it walkable. We have all seen that people do not pay attention to speed limits, crossings or traffic lights. Burtonwood is in a similar situation expecting children to walk 2.9miles to school taking around 1 hour 9mins in an area that floods a lot during winter. last week cars where using the cycle/footpath to get round the flooding but the funny part is the path also floods. Crossing a motorway was also a no go in the past but having lights seems to make it safe even though on multiple occasions I have witness royal mail, evri, amazon and even a highways maintenance van go through the lights on red. Not only that, Lingley Green Avenue is now in talks with the local PCSO as there have been several near misses just outside of the school enforcement at wbc have been informed yet still bus passes for what must be less than 10 children from Burtonwood are still being refused