Council asking for input on road safety cash

Date: 22/10/2012

Councillors in Gloucestershire are canvassing the opinions of local people about how to spend money on highways projects in their wards.

The cabinet is expected to agree on sums of £10,000 for councillors to spend in their communities when they meet on Wednesday, reports This Is Gloucestershire.

It is hoped that under the Gloucestershire County Council programme Highways Your Way, road services will become more localised.

County councillors are keen to work alongside highways managers in order to ascertain where locals would like to see the money spent.

Among the ideas put forward by residents is to improve road safety measures around schools, such as Abbeydale and Abbeymead.

Councillor Andrew Gravells said: "Heron School has suggested some new ideas which could eventually make it much safer for their pupils to cycle to school."

Calls have been made for parking bays to be put in place near the school so that parents don't park dangerously when children are accessing the site.

Councillor Gravells said: "I'm looking into that and meeting with road safety officers there very soon. Some people have suggested looking at ways to reduce speeding along some of the roads here."

The Head Teacher at Heron School, John Coles, said that he hoped that the cycle networks surrounding the school be extended.

This would have the joint benefits of encouraging cycling and reducing the parking problems which currently exist.

Councillor Gravells said: "This is a really good idea, and I'm keen to hear from as many people as possible on what we could do with the money."

Another option for councillors will be to join the sums of money together in collaboration with that of other wards.

This would allow for larger projects to be undertaken in cross-division schemes with much bigger budgets.

Any area looking to resurface roads may well consider such an option.

Posted by Mary Treen

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