Dear Residents
We have been provided with the following information from Staffordshire County Council about active travel to schools in September 2020:
Prior to Covid-19, around 200,000 trips to school were made in the car every day. With less children likely to travel on buses to school in September as per Covid-19 guidelines, there is a very real expectation that many schools and localities will struggle with increased car congestion, increased pollution and unsafe parking practices around the school gates.
However, teams across the county council, including the Active Travel, Parking Enforcement and Highways teams, are working to mitigate disruption and work with schools and parents to reduce the number of cars so that the school gates will a cleaner, safer place to be.
The Active Travel team are currently finalising a bespoke action plan for every school to support them in the first few weeks of term, and every parents will shortly receive a Journey Map planner that outlines the different cycle and pedestrian routes, school crossing patrols and existing Park and Stride locations (see attached for a draft example). It also makes it clear how far you can walk within 20 minutes, which is around 1 mile and just under the average walk to school. As well as supporting schools in this way, the teams are looking at supporting key locality ‘hotspots’ across the county where a number of schools are situated closely together. The support of Members in these key localities would be appreciated and will be contacted soon.
The ‘Walk, Ride, Park and Stride’ communications campaign to help support awareness around the advantages of active travel has already begun across social media. The campaign is currently focusing on raising awareness of the different options for active travel and encouraging parents to start planning and trying out their journey now before the start of school in the week commencing 31st August. Members can support the campaign by sharing content from the Staffordshire County Council and Active Travel social media accounts ( Facebook – @yourstaffordshire and @StaffordshireActiveTravel ; Twitter: @StaffordshireCC and @ActiveTravel). The communications campaign will continue throughout September.
Please direct any enquiries to Cath Stephenson, Connectivity Officer on cath.stephenson@staffordshire.gov.uk