Schools Hill crossing work to start on 4th Feb
January 16, 2013 Iain Roberts 7 Comments

Weather permitting, the replacement of the zebra crossing on Schools Hill with a modern puffin crossing will begin on 4th February 2013, and should be completed by the end of February.

Although it’s taken longer than we’d hoped to complete the planning, we’re very glad to see this going in.

There were several accidents on the crossing last winter and this is the latest in a series of measures to make that section of Schools Hill safer. Other measures include flashing speed signs and rumble strips to slow traffic down.

I’ve also had a recent meeting with Mrs Marsh, the new headteacher at Lady Barn House School. Although there are no easy answers to improving the traffic problems around the school – especially in the afternoon – there are some ideas we’ll be working on over the next few months .

streets

7 Comments

1
Bob
Sunday 20 January 2013 - 3:29 pm

A very simple answer would be not to allow dropping off in the school carpark, but for the parents to park in the sainsbury carpark and walk with their children to the school, then they are all getting their much needed daily exercise, we had to walk to school with a parent from home and back in our days, mostly at least a mile, so whats wrong with walking a few hundred yards?

2
Iain Roberts
Sunday 20 January 2013 - 4:42 pm

Hi Bob,

I’m all for encouraging more walking and cycling to school – as we do across Stockport. The first question would be how to enforce such a rule. Neither the council nor the school has any legal route to prevent children being dropped off at the school, and I can well imagine that if the car park were closed, the result would be even more congestion as more cars parked along Schools Hill.

3
kath hallworth
Sunday 20 January 2013 - 5:54 pm

Hi Iain,

I totally agree with Bob – what a good idea! It seems to me that Ladybarn School have had an easy ride (excuse the pun) over the past years and it is local residents and regular users of Schools Hill that have to put up with the inconsiderate and often dangerous parking manoeouvres by parents.

The answer is not easy but this seems to be the only school in stockport that makes little or no effort to solve a problem they cause. I doubt that yellow lines or parking restrictions would be enforced yet on the Southpark road estate, the Police are out in force issuing tickets!

4
Carole
Sunday 20 January 2013 - 7:19 pm

Make it a “NO RIGHT TURN INTO THE SCHOOL GROUNDS”. At least that would avoid a tailback of traffic up to the “Sainsburys” roudabout. This might also make it a little easier for “non school” traffic to get by traffic turning left into school grounds.

5
Iain Roberts
Sunday 20 January 2013 - 8:39 pm

This is a difficult one. I actually disagree with Kath about what Ladybarn House School have done. They’ve made some changes to the car park and flow of traffic following a consultants’ report they commissioned about the problems, and have also staggered the start/end of the school day where possible to reduce the traffic.

I would worry that making it “no right turn” onto school grounds would simply result in traffic using Daylesford Road and Crescent to turn round in, creating even more problems (if I were driving to the school, it would be much easier for me to do that than take the large detour to approach the school from the other side).

We’re looking at all the parking options, but I think it’s worth acknowledging that the school have made progress and made some positive changes which have reduced (though not eliminated) the problems.

6
Carole
Sunday 20 January 2013 - 11:31 pm

They would find it very hard to turn around in Daylesford Road because they are already parked on either side of that road!!! I appreciate it is a problem.

7
Jennifer
Monday 21 January 2013 - 10:35 am

I agree with Iain, the school has made efforts in the last few years to ease the problems ( I live on Schools Hill and have done so for 47 years!) However much of the problem is the size of the vehicles being driven by people who are not competent with that size of vehicle. No one can do anything about that. As an aside, I wonder where they have all parked over the last week, when the carriageway has been taken up by cars parked by people working on a TV programme being made next door to us!!



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