On Monday night 25 February 2013, the City Development Committee will take an important step towards resolving a road safety issue at Forthill Primary School that was identified in April 2012. The Committee will be asked to approve a Traffic Order for the Part-Time Prohibition of Driving in Fintry Place east of the turning circle at the front of the school. This traffic order would restrict access to this section of Fintry Place to pedestrians only during School Days Monday - Friday 8:30-9:15 am and 3:00-3:30 pm.
The background to this traffic order is that on Thursday 19 April 2012, I visited Forthill Primary School with members of the School Parking and Pupil Safety Working Group. This included officers from Tayside Police, Council staff from Transportation, Education and Travel Active and Councillors like me.
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| Section of Finrty Place which will be subject to part-time prohibition of driving |
For about 25 minutes there was a lot of comings and goings including several hundred vehicle movements. There was also a significant number of parents and carers on foot rather than driving right up to the door in their cars. The potentially most dangerous manoeuvres I observed involved cars reversing close to where children were also crossing the school road. While the issues associated with dropping off and collecting children at Forthill Primary School are well known to me, it was important that all the other members of this group observe the potential dangers to children from the traffic congestion in the vicinity of the school at the end of the school day. It was I think significant that this was the first visit of the working group, which demonstrates the priority being given to systematically investigating and improving arrangements for picking and and dropping off children at Forthill. The working group have four further visits to Primary Schools in other parts of Dundee next week before we move onto devising some solutions.
The School Parking and Pupil Safety Working Group was set up by the Education Committee on Monday 27 February 2012 and the group is chaired by the Chief Executive.
I am sure parent and carers, with children at Forthill Primary School, will be relieved that that one more of the practical solutions we identified last year is about to be implemented.
