Published Wednesday 18 November 2020 at 18:22
Pedestrian crossings in Blackburn have been given a makeover to encourage more people to use them.
At Cravens Brow, a new Blackburn Rovers crossing has been created – linking to plans to paint the Wainwright Bridge in the town in the team’s famous blue and white colours.
And in Redlam, bright new additions have been added to a zebra crossing there to help more families to walk to school safely.
The artwork is a new approach to encourage residents to get out and about more and use roads and footpaths safely.
Research into healthy streets shows that new things to see and do are an incentive for people to be more active in their local neighbourhood.
They’ve been created with help from Blackburn-based UniPlay and Kays TM– the same contractors who the Council teamed up with for the NHS rainbows at Royal Blackburn Hospital and the poppy road markings for Remembrance.
Councillor Phil Riley, Executive Member for Regeneration, said:
We know that residents have been out and about much more during lockdown and that’s fantastic!
We want to do everything we can to keep them safe and this is a novel new way of trying different ways to encourage residents and motorists to take extra care on our roads and pathways.
The Council has benefited from Government funding as part of the Active Travel Fund as well £40,000 from the Department for Transport to repair roads right across the borough.
Councillor Riley added:
We know times are incredibly tough for our residents. Projects like these, the rainbows and the poppies really help make people smile and add something a little different to our borough.
They’ve been psychologically proven to help make roads safer – which is what we all want. I’m really looking forward to seeing what comes next!
The Council’s Highways Team have continued to work on schemes to improve the borough’s highways throughout the pandemic – repairing roads and undertaking large-scale improvement works including.
You can share your views and tell us how you use local streets and roads in the annual highways survey – available to complete until January 2021: https://blackburn.gov.uk/nhtsurvey
To report issues where you live, visit: www.blackburn.gov.uk