Cold Harbour campaigns to get School Street back
On 21st July, seven children from Cold Harbour Primary School went to Civic Offices for a meeting with Murray Woodburn, Head of Traffic and Transport. They won a pledge to reinstate their 'School Street' closure to unnecessary car traffic, which was piloted successfully in 2021-22 and then removed.
Accompanied by headteacher Sarah Kotulecki, teacher Grant Malloch and their Vice-Chair of Governors Paul Simmonds, the children gave testimonies about the problem of too many cars outside the school in the morning, including a younger brother being nearly knocked down recently.
"My brother was crossing and a car didn't stop," said Billy. "It scared me. Little children like him can't always see properly and cars don't always see them. We need it to be safer."
Ms Kotulecki outlined all the school community has done to address the problem, including a listening campaign followed by letters to senior politicians and other local powerholders.
"We encourage families to walk, scoot or cycle instead of drive. That sparked a bigger shift in how we think about travel as a school. We brought in cycle training, hosted events, and built a whole-school approach to active travel."
Mr Woodburn (who was on the screen as currently away from the city) complimented the school on "doing all you can so far" and said "we must now come in and complete the job". He agreed to attend a Bicycle Breakfast at the school on 24th September, to look at enabling additional cycle and scooter parking on the school site, and to share best practice from his upcoming trip to the Netherlands; also, with Transport Planner Raeesa Chowdhury, to produce a Council press release about the Cold Harbour School Street campaign.
The children agreed to do some research and inform Mr Woodburn of other 'danger points' near their school, also locations near their homes where cars drive too fast, and Ms Kotulecki agreed to share the school's community engagement method with other schools across the city.
After the meeting, the children scored it 8 out of 10, to be improved only by provision of drink and biscuits!