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by Lib Dem team on 9 November, 2011
The Lib Dems have been very concerned about safety at the Cheadle Royal end of Schools Hill. Due to speeding cars and the camber of the road, parked vehicles are frequently hit and there have been two accidents on the pelican crossing over the last few months.
So we’re very glad that residents will, over the next week or so, be consulted on improvements.
The proposals are to improve visibility at the junction of The Downs and Schools Hill, and to put in flashing speed signs to slow down traffic approaching the crossing – these signs have a good record of success elsewhere.
We’ve also asked the Council to look at increasing the visibility of the crossing itself.
14 Comments
Hi Keith/Iain/Pam,
My wife Andrea contacted you all a few months ago following the accident involving the little girl at the crossing( Andrea was at the scene at the time). We are very supportive of traffic calming measures to be put in place very quickly. We have children at Lady barn and live on Schools Hill , so we use the crossing several times per day and it’s clear that most cars come up and down the hill far too quickly. Most times we attempt to cross, we find that at least 2/3 cars go through the crossing before one eventually stops. Along with flashingwarning signs etc, I would like to know why the speed limit is not 20 mph outside the school as it is for other schools. Also, there are no barriers outside the school gates or along the pavement running up to the crossing. Again I think barriers to prevent children running into the road/cars mounting the pavement at a place where lots of young children walk is essential. We’d be more than happy to do whatever we can to get change in place quickly as it’s only a matter of time before we have another accident that is potentially more serious than the last 2.
They need to look at the gridlock of school traffic there in the morning too. It is nose to tail from Wilmslow Road right up to the school gates. They need to put a \Park and Stride\ system in place. So lazy. I didn’t get driven to the school doors!
Totally agree that this should be a 20 mph zone, as should other nearby roads such as Daylesford Road which are used to access the A34 or cut through when traffic on the A34 is bad. Cars travel far too fast on this road as well. There should also be barriers outside the school, as the pavement is very narrow. I’m not convinced that flashing signs will work here, I think we need a proper pelican crossing. I know that the school traffic is an issue. I wonder if more parents would be prepared to park off site and walk their children in to school if they felt that the pavements and crossings were safe? It’s only a matter of time before there is a very serious accident.
Writing as a Schools Hill resident who frequently has to walk past LB School at the start of the day, I was struck by your recent hapless comment that the school authorities didn’t feel able to cooperate with any of the proposals to cut down on the havoc their parents cause. A start would be actually to instate a pavement that ran past the school on the other side of the road downhill from the crossing. Why not show some spine and stop all drop-offs at peak hours? This is a potentially dangerous blight on one of Cheadle’s finest roads.
We agee with all that has been written. Traffic going in and out of the school causes huge traffic build up and makes non school users very impatient. Perhaps parents coming from John Lewis roundabout direction should not be allowed to turn right into the school so at least one direction would flow freely and those coming from Wilmslow Road & turning left into the school grounds would be close to the pavement before managing to turn into school grounds!!
I appreciate the frustration regarding the school traffic, but this is about speeding on School’s Hill and the two accidents that have happened on the crossing; these are unrelated to the build up of traffic outside the school. However I do think that if the crossings can be made safer then parents would be more willing to park off site. Given that there have been two accidents on the crossing in recent months and that people often fail to stop for the lollipop man, you can hardly blame parents for wanting to drop children off in the car park rather than cross a dangerous road. The school has done everything it can and has asked parents not to queue to turn right into the car park but they cannot enforce it.
Les – I appreciate you want action, but we are restrained by the law.
Ruth – We are aiming to make the crossing safer and we’ll see what effect that has. However, in my experience most parents driving their children to school do so for convenience or due to pressure of time, rather than because of safety concerns due to walking.
A couple of additional points to those already mentioned.
I was told by a representative from the Council, who was here, with Pam King, in June to discuss traffic calming on Schools Hill that £10,000 (from Sainsburys) should be enough to pay for the 2 flashing lights which are in the proposal and the rumble strips at the top of Schools Hill.
Now it appears that the money for the rumble strips is in question….hopefully this will be found.
Secondly, the residents of The Downs have done well to campaign for better visible access when leaving The Downs but to put double yellow lines in the main parking bay begs the question…where will this traffic park now?
Some of these vehicles may belong to people who work in the area and to others who are taking dogs into the park…why not free parking for one hour in the park?
I will be elaborating on this issue in my response to the Council.
Undoubtable the school drop off traffic is a problem, but the issue here( as re-iterated by Ruth) is the speeding not about making it hard for parents as Les suggests.
At least when schools hill is grid-locked in the morning, the traffic doesn’t get the chance to build up enough speed to fail to stop at the crossing. We’ve used the crossing several times this weekend when we’ve taken our young children to the park and traffic has failed to stop at the crossing due to excessive speed.
I think a 20 mph with a pelican crossing and potentially barriers outside the school gates is all it needs.
Iain- can you give any approx timescales for any work to be done, since as we can see this stretch of road is an accident blackspot and one where it’s likely a child will be seriously injured at some point.
Thank you
Paul.
Hi Paul,
The next stage is to consult – when that’s been done, we should be able to get something done pretty quickly (consulting is worthwhile – as can be seen from these comments, people have different ideas and we don’t want to put in the wrong thing).
Can’t give timescales, beyond saying we’re working to get something sorted as quickly as possible.
Actually why should Sainsbury pay for anything LB is a fee paying school isn’t it? And as for doing all they (the school) can I doubt that. The arrogance of a lot of parents has been documented here before, but if you sup with the devil…..
Alan,
These proposals are to improve safety at the pelican crossing for everyone. The person recently injured was not connected to the school as far as I know and the crossing is used both by local residents and visitors to the park.
There are no plans at the moment for additional railings outside the school, and we’ve not been contacted by the school or parents suggesting anything along those lines.
Alan, if you have any good suggestions for improving the situation then perhaps you’d like to let the school know? I’m sure they would be more than happy to hear them. Maybe we can put politics to one side and remember that it’s the safety of children that we are talking about here; in any case as Iain points out these issues are nothing to do with the school traffic issue.
Iain -do you have any idea on who would be consulted? Immediate neighbours only or the wider community?
Alan- i echo Ruths comments about putting politics aside on this issue. I happen to be a parent at LB as well as a local resident with young children who go to the park regularly. If you nothing constructive to contribute, then I suggest you keep your ‘views’ private.
Iain- thanks for your reply. It would be good to find out the legal position of instigating a 20mph zone for this stretch of road.