Cornwall County Council School Travel Strategy

Cornwall County Council School Travel Strategy

• 1 Foreword

• 1 Scope of this Strategy
• 2 Introduction
• 3 Specific Objectives of this Strategy
• 4 Background
  • 4.1 Safer Routes to School in Cornwall
  • 4.2 Introduction of the Travelling to School Initiative in Cornwall
• 5 The Future of School Travel Plans in Cornwall
• 6 Implementing a Successful Strategy
• 7 Examples of Good Practice
• 8 Targets

• 1 Appendices

4.1 Safer Routes to School in Cornwall

Historically, most of the early work on sustainable travel in Cornwall was centred around Safer Routes to School (SRTS) as the first step towards halting the increase in children being ferried to school by car, with all its associated impacts on health, congestion and pollution. The County’s commitment to a robust Safer Routes to School programme and its ongoing, associated publicity has served as an invaluable example of the ‘Travel Awareness’ approach to these issues and as a guide to what can and cannot be achieved by such work.

Cornwall County Council implemented its first Safer Routes to School project at Falmouth Community School in 1997. This fitted well with the town’s ‘package’ status which provided an over-arching strategy for the town and the necessary funding to implement it.  Subsequently, that project developed into, first, a town-wide initiative, and then into the Safer Routes programme for Cornwall as a whole.

The target for rolling out this programme was ambitious in that it sought to undertake quality travel survey work at 22 schools a year, analyse the findings, and then make recommendations to be carried forward into specific engineering measures. From the outset it was clear that there would have to be a compromise between seeking to be inclusive and available across the County and at the same time seeking to be relatively focused and provide real outcomes in terms of modal shift. In order to continue providing high quality and useful survey work, after only two years, the target was reduced to 15 schools per annum with the caveat that schools which had pressing issues or especial enthusiasm for these matters could still fast-track themselves into the programme.

As the initiative was rolled out it was noticeable that the greatest success was being achieved in the towns of Falmouth and Newquay. It can be confidently argued that the main reasons for this are as follows:

 i  Good potential for increased walking and cycling.

 ii   A town wide school ‘cluster’ approach to Safer Routes Schools encouraging the schools to work together but promoting healthy competition between schools.

 iii   A significant amount of targeted engineering measures (where appropriate)

  iv   Good synergy between direct Safer Routes work and other work  (i.e. other CCC funded initiatives or those funded by other agencies).

  v     A concentration of both educational and ‘hearts and minds’ work in the schools.

 vi     Good engagement by the schools and the parents with children at the schools.

The Safer Routes to School Programme in Cornwall was effectively brought to an end in early 2005 following the introduction of the TTSI in 2004 which necessitated a change in approach.  Please refer to Appendix 2 for a complete list of schools who took part in the programme.

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