Three mums (including myself) whose children attend Wyke Primary School in Normandy, Guildford (Surrey) have launched a campaign for road safety for our children and the villagers of Normandy. The campaign ('We Want 'Wig Wags' for Wyke, aka the '5Ws Campaign') was incubated from our great concern for safety when we cross three dangerous roads (Westwood Lane, Guildford Road, and School Lane) with our children. There has been extreme congestion in School Lane once our school bus service was stopped, which has made more parents park their cars in other areas near the school, yet still crossing the main roads to school is extremely dangerous due to lack of adequate signage and appropriate traffic calming measures. We had presented our petition at the Normandy Parish Council meeting on the 26th October and received strong support from the local councillors, let alone the school governors, head teacher and the parents. We are continuing to expand our petition to lobby Surrey County Council and Guildford Borough Council (the Local Area Committee) to provide funding to improve road safety. We are asking for:
- installation of flashing school 'wig wag' signs;
- extension of the 30mph limit towards Ash and clearer signage entering Normandy from Ash;
- a pelican/zebra crossing with lights on the A323 between Westwood Lane and School Lane;
- any other traffic calming necessary to slow traffic through the whole village
Please spread out this campaign so that we can get lots of supports from likeminded parents.
Comments
Stick with it.
At college we didn't campaign hard enough for a crossing where it was needed and so didn't get one until a student was killed.
Thank you Rebecca, we've found it quite challenging to learn all the petition precedures and how local constituencies work and keep this momentum going as we're all working mums, but we'll keep on doing it until we get what we want to achieve.
It's important to recognise that this will take a long time as there will need to be proper consultations and the realities of local budgets for this type of scheme a a big challenge.
Look after yourselves and try to plan to put some energy into this every 3-6 months, to keep it ticking away over a long period of time. Perhaps you could chat about it at an after school play centre or an evening pub meal or something like that every few months? Try to make it fun and sociable. There don't need to be many of you involved (3 mums sounds perfect) but ideally you should try to get someone on the HSA and someone from the school governing body involved - you must at least make sure you are communicating well with both bodies.
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