Schoolgirl driving out bad parking at school

A schoolgirl’s winning design is helping to draw attention to road safety outside her school.

Pupil Laurie Black, age 8, has won a competition to design a poster to highlight problems with parking outside Lower Darwen Primary School.

The competition was organised by the school in response to the number of complaints received about dangerous and inconsiderate driving by some parents including the blocking of residents’ drives. On one occasion the householder needed to get to hospital and couldn’t.

Pupils were taught in PSHE lessons about the dangers of parking badly and were then asked to design a poster highlighting the issues. There were over 150 entries and the standard was very high.

The winning poster was judged by the PCSO Justin Limb and School Governor and serving police inspector Chris Hill.

Laurie Black was presented with a £20 voucher for The Mall in Blackburn and a printed copy of her artwork.

FOLD, Friends of Lower Darwen, have paid for the banner to be printed and it has been installed on the school fence in the hope it will encourage drivers to be more responsible.

Headteacher Steve Cumbo said: “The road outside school is very busy in the morning and afternoons when the children are being dropped off and picked up. Increasingly some parents have been driving dangerously and inconsiderately and we have had complaints from other parents and local residents. We have been working with the Police to get the message across to parents that this is not acceptable and needs to change before a child is involved in an accident.”

School Governor Chris Hill, who is also a serving police inspector, said “Road safety is extremely important and everyone’s concern. I fully support the school in highlighting this danger to our children. My message is simple and clear – arrive in plenty of time, respect local residents and ‘no parking’ lines, park sensibly and safely so
you are not putting the children of LDPS in significant danger of death or serious injury.”

Winner Laurie said: “I wanted to the poster because it was fun and road safety is important.”

Louise Loughheed from the FOLD said: “The FOLD takes safety of the children very seriously and after we received a request for funds to assist with this campaign, we had no hesitation in contributing. Also huge congratulations to Laurie for winning the poster competition.”

End

Caption: Laurie Black with her winning road safety poster.