Bromley parents claim school run on busy road feels like an 'accident waiting to happen'
| Published date | 11 April 2024 |
| Publication title | MyLondon (England) |
She told the Local Democracy Reporting Service LDRS: “I realised there is no official crossing and the traffic is so intense. Obviously that was quite surprising, that there are no security measures around such a big school.”
She added: “[When crossing the road] the car on the right will let [parents] go and when they are already in the middle of the street with children, the car on the left doesn’t stop and goes by just in front of them. It’s very dangerous and it occurs almost every day to someone.”
The petition was discussed at a Bromley Council meeting on March 11. Conservative Councillor Nicholas Bennett, portfolio holder for road safety, confirmed that funding from Transport for London had been approved to carry out a study on road safety in the area around the schools.
The portfolio holder said the study would determine what type of improvements in the area would be most beneficial, but council documents maintained that adding formal crossings was not certain. Ms Malka-Tollefsen said she and other petitioners were not satisfied that budget constraints was a relevant reason for not adding the crossings.
She said: “There are always other expenses. So with the budget constraints, I don't think that really speaks to us. There's so many children attending the school that covers a large portion of the community here."
Data from Crashmap.co.uk states that six incidents involving serious injuries had occurred since 2018 on Crofton Lane and Towncourt Lane, which the schools sit on. Data collected by the petitioners also stated 76 parents at the school had experienced near misses when dropping their kids off or picking them up from the schools.
One parent said in their response to the petition: “I was a witness and immediate first aider to a pupil's father knocked down by a car, driven by a grandmother transporting her grandchild. He was hospitalised with head injuries. Needless to say, I was not surprised this happened.”
Charlotte Grievson, 40, was also involved in organising the petition and has two children attending the schools, aged five and eight years old. She said Bromley Council had asked the petitioners to acquire more data on traffic movements outside the school when initially...
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