Barrow school children to benefit from road safety equipment

Children at Greengate Infants School, Barrow, are having a special delivery of road safety equipment on Thursday, 30th January, at 9.30am, to help teach them an important road safety lesson. 

Councillor Kevin Hamilton, Vice Chairman of Barrow Local Committee and local councillor, will be delivering policeman's uniforms, traffic signs and a play roadworks scene to enable the children to become involved in role play activities to get the road safety message across. Ken Hanson, road safety officer for Capita, working on behalf of Cumbria County Council, will be holding a road safety workshop with the children and putting the new equipment to the test. 

Barrow Local Committee provided a grant for the equipment through its Better Ways to School funding package. The whole community around Greengate Infant, including children, parents, staff and governors, has spent the last 10 months gathering information together to produce a school travel plan aimed at encouraging parents and children to choose walking, cycling and public transport and cutting congestion at the school gates. Other aspects of the plan include extending the pedestrian guardrail outside the school and introducing footprints on a path near to a car park to encourage the children to stay on the path. Greengate School is one of a number of schools in Barrow and throughout Cumbria benefiting from the Better Ways to School initiative. 

Councillor Hamilton said:   

"The road safety lesson is an important one for children to learn and the sooner we can get that message across the better. If we can teach primary age children to be safe on the roads then hopefully when they get to secondary school, the young people will be more responsible and taking care on the road will come naturally. Creating an safer environment in which children can cycle or walk to school can also encourage more sustainable forms of transport and a healthier lifestyle."