Two Eastbourne schools continue to fight for better road safety measures

Groups from Gildredge House School and Cavendish School attended the East Sussex County Council meeting on October 24. The Gildredge House School group - led by parent Katherine Eleanor Bruce - want railings along the pavement of Compton Place Road and a full safety assessment carried out with safety measures implemented. The Cavendish School group want a pedestrian crossing in Eldon Road outside the school.

Ms Bruce set up the petition for ESCC. She said: “Generally, it’s a fairly quiet road, but at school drop-off and pick-up times, all that changes: it frequently becomes busy, congested, unpredictable and dangerous. It’s an accident waiting to happen.”

More on the Gildredge House School petition here

Councillors John Ungar and Peter Diplock have been involved with the Cavendish petition. Cllr Ungar said: “I have been very concerned about road safety, particularly for school children. When Cavendish School extension was built I did ask for a zebra crossing to be installed outside. My request was turned down. Now, these few years later, a child has been knocked down and hurt, which led to the petition being set up by borough Cllr Diplock. We are hoping that the lead member will ignore what the officers recommend and arrange for the zebra crossing to be installed outside the school.”

Acting on officers’ advice (and after hearing from both sets of petitioners), Cllr Claire Dowling concluded that neither request should move ahead at this time. This was because neither project had met the council’s High Level Sift criteria — a process which seeks to prioritise funding to road works likely to have the greatest impact on reducing deaths and injury.

While Cllr Dowling ultimately declined the petitioners’ requests, she did say the projects could potentially secure funding through the council’s community match scheme. This scheme can see non-priority projects receive funding as long as a local group (usually a parish council) stumps up half the money for it.

Ms Bruce read out a statement from Craig Bull, the headteacher of Gildredge House School. The statement said: “One unique concern to us as an all-through school is the challenge of ensuring the safety of children as young as four, their parents with siblings and prams, and secondary age children who make their way home alone on foot or bicycles. This is made difficult when the roads and indeed pavements which serve as a route to and from school are inadequate at ensuring safe passage. We continually review and improve our process to ensure a safe and smooth drop off and pick up, and we would ask that the local authority do the same regarding the pavements on Compton Place Road.”

Full report of the meeting here

Cllr Ungar said afterwards: “I don’t understand how the safety of children is not a high enough priority.”

Ms Bruce said after the meeting: "It was good to meet with ESCC, but obviously we're disappointed with the outcome. As parents, we shouldn't have to beg or even fundraise to make a road outside a school safe - it should be the norm. We'll soon be meeting again with the school, Eastbourne councillors and local residents to discuss next steps."

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