Keeping BwD children safe during Road Safety Awareness Week

Children in Blackburn were given a lesson in road safety and council leaders praised the programme being delivered this Road Safety Awareness Week.

Year one pupils at St Luke and St Phillip’s RC Primary School were taught about the dangers of crossing the road and were told how to stay safe when out and about.

The session was delivered by BwD Council’s Community Safety Officer, Andrew Duxbury and PCSO Stuart Knowles who used a talk and interactive games to educate the 27 schoolchildren.

Councillor Julie Gunn, Deputy Leader and Executive Member for Children, Young People and Education attended the road safety workshop and said the safety programme was informative and well delivered.

She said:

It was great to see the children interact and learn how to stay alert when crossing the road and anything that will keep them safe is welcomed not just as part of Road Safety Awareness Week, but every day.

They are also encouraged to walk to school rather than be driven in a car which also teaches them about other issues such as air pollution and keeping fit.

Well done to those involved and let’s continue to keep our roads and children safe.

Creating safer and healthier roads in Blackburn and Darwen ties into a number of agendas and priorities which means improving rates of walking and cycling is a key action within the road safety agenda – both via improving safety for these more vulnerable road users, and by encouraging active travel and thereby fewer cars on the road.

Andrew Duxbury aims to keep children safe and will be going to different schools across the borough to engage with them, he also promotes healthy lifestyles by encouraging people to walk to school.

Andrew said:

Road Safety education in schools is an integral part of our Safer Roads strategy in keeping young children safe on our roads.

Blackburn with Darwen Council collaborate with the local neighbourhood policing teams visiting local Primary schools within our borough to teach children road safety skills, focussing on the Green Cross Code, finding safe places to cross, being bright and being seen and car seat safety.

These skills can then be practised with parents or carers to develop further to ensure safety is maintained.

We would encourage children to wear bright high-vis clothing with reflective materials when making school journeys or crossing roads, especially with the earlier darker mornings and nights that we now have.