A Safer Earlswood

Back in October 2020 a group of local parents started talking about safer streets around both school sites - we don’t know about you, but the roads feel busier than ever. The idea of ‘School Streets’ was raised on social media and in an online community meeting, so since then we’ve been exploring the idea. We’ve been in consultation with Sustrans who have been a tremendous support in explaining how a School Street works, and what’s involved.

With the news this week that sadly a child was involved in a collision with a vehicle, it has given us a greater impetus to progress with our ideas. We truly hope that the child and family are ok, and can imagine what a shock it must have been. Our thoughts are with them.

We’re now at the point that we’d like to reach out to our local community to gauge what desire there might be for a safer environment for our children in which to travel to and from school. To be clear, we are just a bunch of parents; but we feel passionately that our children deserve to be safe. We see the School Streets initiative as a starter towards a safer commute to school, and a way forward for more active methods of travel, along with the physical and mental benefits they bring with them.

A trial School Street scheme will need volunteers and we would love for you to join us. If you’d like to, please email us to set up an initial video call, which if demand calls for it, could be multiple small group sessions to provide more details of the School Streets trial, and help us to put a timetable together for it. Please drop us a line at LivingEarlswood@gmail.com

Look forward to hearing from you.

Best wishes Rich, Chris, John and Sarah