Anger that school safety needs to become an issue

PEOPLE should not have to campaign to make sure children can cross the road by Forest Primary School safely, parents said yesterday.

As mums and dads collected their children at lunchtime yesterday, those spoken to by the Guernsey Press all agreed that the pedestrian crossing outside the school was dangerous.

But some felt angry that it was even an issue that needed to be argued about.

'This should not even be an issue,' said Guy Hendry, whose five-year-old son, Alex, goes to the school.

'When you are talking about the safety of children we should not need to have a campaign to get something done.'

The school's head teacher and its PTA have described witnessing 'near misses' on a weekly basis at the crossing - but the Environment Department has so far said it believes the current traffic calming measures in place should be enough to make drivers stop.

Parents want manually controlled traffic lights to be installed but Environment minister Peter Sirett said that the system that used to be in place at the crossing, before Le Rondin opened, was inadequate as drivers had got so used to them being on green that they wouldn't stop when they changed to red.

Mr Hendry (pictured), who agreed traffic lights would be the best course of action, said that even if the department did not go down that route, the situation could not be left as is.