Thank you to everyone who joined us this morning for the walk between sites. We met at Tomlinscote Way and were joined by local councillors, representative from Surrey CC, members of the CAM Group and many local parents and residents. Over 70 people took part in the event. Before we left Tomlinscote Way, Louise Nicholas, Chair of CAM addressed the group and handouts detailing our issues were distributed. A copy of that handout is attached. We also distributed details of walking distances to Frimley Park Hospital and current intake details from each school. All attached here for your information.
We walked along Chobham Road to the Frimley Park Hospital. Crossed over at the Hospital and walked onto Kings along the Frimley Road. We made many stops on the way highlighting concerns in terms of inadequate crossing points, inadequate pavements/cycle routes etc. We stopped at the Back Gate of Kings before moving to the front gate at which point we discussed further issues and dispersed. A small group of us, including Nick Smith from Surrey CC, returned using the M3 Pedestrian Bridge, which again highlighted potential issues and concerns for our children's safety if the proposal went ahead.Throughout the walk parents carried bags and laptops to help us understand how our children would cope if this were to become an everyday journey for our children. For example on Tuesday my childs bags and laptop weighed 7.5kg. Other parents have confirmed this to be average weight carried on a normal school day.
CAM (Campaign Against Merger) is an elected body working on behalf of parents from both schools and residents to highlight that the proposal to merge Kings into Tomlinscote and to operate New Tomlinscote as a split siite school is not in the best interests of our childrens education and well being.
NATIONAL WALK TO SCHOOL WEEK
This week is national walk to school week and Tomlinscote is a school where a high percentage of children walk to school. Tomlinscote has been recognised for this as an example to other school communities. The proposed expansion of Tomlinscote will change this and cause a large volume of children who currently walk to school to have to catch buses or be driven by parents. Many Kings studentswill be unable to make the journey on foot. We would like the right for them to be able to walk a safe distance to school which is a main factor in us as parents choosing the school. If the expansion were to go ahead this CHOICE would be removed.
Living Streets a charity which has been the national voice for pedestrians during the past 80 years has conducted surveys which show that:
· Over 36% of children are scared to walk to school because of speeding traffic.
· One in five children and young people are concerned about the LACK of SAFE CROSSING POINTS on their journey to school.
· One in five secondary pupils are worried about being bullied on the walk to school and 39% are scared of stranger danger.
Children should be encouraged to walk to school as it improves health, wellbeing and brings back a sense of community belonging.
Walking to school is being eroded by planning decisions of which this proposal is one, in favour of vehicle traffic and placing our local schools outside walking range for many pupils. The expanded Tomlinscote would create a split site solution nearly 2 miles apart creating huge traffic and transport issues for parents and causing our right to walk to school to be placed in spiralling decline. The proposal touches briefly on the provision of buses for those children who would normally be assisted in travel as they live over 3 miles away and offers to allow this to change to 2 miles for a minimal period of time which covers only those years directly affected. This is not a long term solution, does not provide any costing or detail and is actually against what people want.
In Terms of Travel and Traffic:
· The students will need to travel longer distances to school. This will cause major traffic issues, as the increased distance will require many children who currently walk to school to be dropped off by car – extra car journeys that currently do not take place. A majority of Tomlinscote students walk to school, for which the school is highly commended and held up as an example.
· The walking route has no safe crossing points from the Tomlinscote direction.
· There will be travel issues for both children and parents. The problem will be particularly acute for families where both partners work and who rely on their children currently walking to and from school. Additionally, parents with children attending a local junior school would in future potentially face real difficulties with car journeys – particularly if they have two Tomlinscote children with one attending each site.
· Those children who do maintain a journey to school on foot will have approximately up to an extra two miles added to their journey. There could well be over time an increase in pedestrian-related traffic accidents – particularly as the journey by foot passes through a high traffic density black spot. ( please see map of walking distances to FPHospital)
· Between the two school sites there are situated many very high traffic destinations: e.g. Frimley Park Hospital; the Siemens UK HQ; the large BAE office (and a potential new BAE HQ); the Albany Park and Lyons Way business parks; the M3 junction four etc. Already, the area has major traffic issues throughout much of the day and resembles a car park at certain commuter times and hospital visit times. This problem is already going to get much worse with the addition of 1200 new homes (meaning approximately 2400 extra cars) in Deepcut, from which much of the traffic will come through Frimley, between the two school sites, and towards the nearby M3 junction four.
· Additionally, there are security issues for children walking the extra two miles to school – not least of which is the fact that many pupils will be carrying expensive and therefore attractive, laptop computers.
· No risk assessment or feasibility study of the safety aspects have been produced within the proposal.
· Given extra travel time, students will have their day increased substantially and this will affect academic outcomes.
· Quality of life will be affected for all local residents as traffic will increase around an existing major traffic hot spot. Travel times, noxious emissions, time cost to local business and traffic/pedestrian accidents are all likely to increase over-time by adding further traffic weight to an already over-stressed area.
The proposed solution to those problems identified in the proposal is to provide money, but money is not the whole solution. It needs to accurately targeted and managed.
UK Concerns:
The UK is rated 11th for child pedestrian deaths in a ranking of 19 EU countries. A child pedestrian is three more times likely to die in the UK than Italy and twice as likely as France.
In 2009 The House of Commons Select Committee pointed to the ‘scandal of complacency’ in accepting such high rates of death an injury on our streets.
HEALTH
The Chief Medical Officers CMO Annual Report 2009 draws attention to the importance of physical activity to our health. Walking can improve overall fitness dramatically and is a cheap, low impact way to exercise. Children who walk to school tend to be more active. Walking has the advantage over the bus of requiring no preparation, no special equipment or venues and no expenditure of money.
9 out of 10 teachers surveyed by the Department of Transport considered that the walk to school makes children brighter, more alert and ready for the first lesson of the day.
Children benefit health wise by walking but if the walk is excessive it can have detrimental effects.
There are significant health issues which our children may suffer as a result of having to carry their laptop, bag and PE kit over 4-6 miles a day. A Tomlinscote or Kings student carries around 6 kilos in weight in back packs per day. Overloaded backpacks will compromise the posture of children and could lead to future injuries of the spine. 25% of children are carrying more than 20% of their body weight in bags.
The local environment can be improved as fewer cars create fewer carbon emissions and less local congestion.
Living Streets recommends that:
Government at National and Local level should continue to maintain funding for school travel planning. Staff and local councils must recognise the cross cutting benefits of prioritising action on sustainable travel to school.
To stop ever increasing average distances to school, school admissions authorities should adopt distance between home and school as the primary tie breaker criterion for oversubscribed schools. Admissions authorities must ensure that the methodology for calculating distance between home and school takes account of all suitable walking routes including footpaths.
Local Authorities should be given a statutory duty to ensure safer routes to schools are provided and that safe crossing points are in position.
Parents of both Tomlinscote and Kings International school and local residents through CAM would like to ensure that our concerns are taken seriously.
A feasibility study should already have taken place and discussing with SHB Council the comment made in the consultation document does not allay our concerns. What have SCC put into place to deal with the traffic in detail, particularly in relation to additional items like traffic lights, zebra crossing etc. We would like to see the traffic survey that SCC have undertaken and see the risk assessments that have been drawn up to ensure that our children can go to school safely.
WE DO NOT WANT OUR CHILDREN TO HAVE TO GO TO SCHOOL ON A BUS PAID OR UNPAID.
WE DO NOT WANT A SPLIT SITE SCHOOL - SPLIT BY MAJOR TRAFFIC PROBLEMS.
WE DO NOT NEED TO CATCH A BUS OUR CHILDREN CAN, AND DO, WALK TO SCHOOL.
WE WANT A LOCAL SCHOOL SERVING ITS LOCAL COMMUNITY AND WHERE CHILDREN CAN SAFELY WALK TO SCHOOL.
WE WANT CHOICE.Tomlinscote currently held up as a walk to school Role Model by SurreyCC
This rather hopeful document from SurreyCC has children walking 3 miles in 45 minutes! So I think you should take the actual quoted times with a pinch of salt. I'd multiply the figures by 1.3 or 1.5 to get closer to the truth - and even that may be better than would actually be achieved! My kids currently take about 15 mins to do the 5 min walk! Update: Actually it is merely a rough guide as it also is distances measured from Frimley Park Hospital NOT Kings international.
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=1p8rXglqA_6Cm10WnzyKKXS87QfNTzwRLS-mxLC8pvanYPf-FIXOh5-q6-Ti1&hl=en_US
To avoid any confusion this document was not issued to us by Surrey CC it came from general research on the matter and relates to average walking times (presumably adults)
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