Have your say on Lambeth School Streets: Reay Primary School

We're consulting on plans to make the journey to school safer for pupils and have invited Reay Primary School to be a pilot for our School Streets programme. The consultation is open to comments from 19 December 2019 to 31 January 2020.

As part of our School Streets programme, we are proposing to trial a School Street at Reay Primary School.

Our proposal is to close Mowll Street and the section of Hackford Road between Caldwell Street and South Island; during term-time weekdays from 8am to 9am and 3pm to 4pm as shown in the map.

Ahead of the trial, we will be collecting data on how parents and pupils travel to school, traffic flow and speeds on surrounding roads, and taking air quality readings before, during and after the trial.

We will analyse the results of this consultation and will consult again towards the end of the trial to find out whether the school community and local residents judge the trial to be a success and whether they would like the closure to be made permanent.

What is a School Street?

School Streets are timed road closures around schools, introduced to reduce road danger and create an environment that encourages increased active travel. The road is closed to vehicles for a period of time in the morning and afternoon but remains open to pedestrians and cyclists.

Even in a borough with low car ownership such as Lambeth, roads around schools are often clogged with traffic at the beginning and end of the school day. Limited parking around most schools in the borough means drivers sometimes park in the most dangerous places right outside the school gates, or stop in the middle of the road, putting their own and other children arriving at school at risk; local residents are often inconvenienced and annoyed by inconsiderate parking.

In some parts of the borough, increasing amounts of rat running along streets with schools on them increases the safety fears of parents - the resulting environment for those walking, cycling or scooting to school is far from ideal and discourages some families from choosing active means – with a knock-on effect for children’s activity levels, as well as potentially for air quality in the immediate vicinity of the school.

How does a closure work?

The street outside the school becomes a pedestrian and cycle only zone for certain periods in the morning and afternoon; for this trial, the closure will be reinforced by gates operated by the council for the first two weeks and then Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras will take over the enforcement.

An Experimental Traffic Management Order will be put in place by the council to close the road. This means the gates and cameras are simply to enforce the order and therefore vehicles moving through the closure at those times even if the gates are not in place will be committing a violation and be subject to enforcement action by the council.

Vehicles are not permitted to enter the street between the times of the closure unless they are a registered resident of the School Street Zone IP1., registered blue badge holder accessing the school or are an emergency vehicle. Residents will be able to leave the street by car during the closure times. We'll put up advance warning signs to inform drivers of the restrictions at the entrances of the School Street Zone.

For more information, you can check out our Reay Primary School FAQs or contact us by email.