Hillingdon Council has collectively awarded eight local primary schools more than £3,500 to carry out road safety initiatives following their successful bids at a 'Dragons' Den' style event on Thursday 19 March.
The annual initiative, held at the Battle of Britain Bunker Exhibition and Visitor Centre in Uxbridge, involves pitches to the dragons from representatives of each school’s ‘TfL Explorers’ – pupils elected to lead on sustainable travel and road safety issues on behalf of their peers.
Funding for the Dragon’s Den grants was provided from the council’s Transport for London Local Implementation Plan budget.
This year’s panel of dragons included Cllr Steve Tuckwell, Hillingdon Council’s Cabinet Member for Planning, Housing and Growth; Cllr Susan O’Brien, Hillingdon Council’s Cabinet Member for Children, Families and Education, and Lisa Mayo, the council’s Road Safety and School Travel Manager.
Among the inventive suggestions were a school pool bike scheme to increase participation in Year 6 Bikeability training for pupils who do not own a bike; step count challenges to promote active travel, and road safety themed playground markings to teach younger children key skills.
The schools which took part were:
- Belmore Primary School, Hayes
- Dr Triplett’s C of E Primary School, Hayes
- Grange Park Junior School, Hayes
- Hayes Park School, Hayes
- Heathrow Primary School, West Drayton
- Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School, Ruislip
- St Helen’s College, Uxbridge
- William Byrd Primary School, Hayes.
Cllr Tuckwell said: “It was brilliant to hear so many interesting and clever suggestions to raise awareness of road safety issues and take steps towards helping make school journeys even safer and more active.
“It’s always useful to get a first-hand perspective of where people think safety issues lie and our School Travel and Road Safety (STaRS) team routinely works with schools in the borough and their TfL Explorers to help identify and tackle these.”
Cllr O’Brien added: “Each year, the schoolchildren attending our Dragons’ Den event demonstrate not only a really sound understanding and awareness of road safety issues but also provide some brilliantly original thinking to propose how these could be resolved.”
To work with the council’s STaRS team at your school on a School Travel Plan or other initiatives, email stars@hillingdon.gov.uk
