Following the recent serious road traffic incident where a three year old child was hit by a car on Springhill Road, we, the undersigned, call on Walsall Council to urgently improve road safety outside Blue Coat Junior School.

Parents, residents, carers and local people are extremely concerned about speeding traffic, dangerous parking, congestion at drop-off and pick-up times, and the risk this poses to children and pedestrians.

More than a thousand children move through this area every day to get to school at one of a number of local primary and secondary schools including the three Blue Coat Schools.  Every child should be able to get to school safely without parents fearing a serious accident. The current situation on Springhill Road is unsafe and requires immediate action before somebody else is seriously injured.

We are asking the council to work with the schools and local residents to introduce meaningful road safety measures, including:

• Urgent traffic calming assessment
• Enforcement of the 20mph speed limit outside the school
• Improvements to make the Springhill Road pedestrian crossing safer for large groups of adults and children to use - for example increasing the size of the island and re-introducing the crossing patrol wardens

We believe children’s safety must come before convenience. Springhill Road should be a safe route to school, not a danger point.

Preventing an accident is always better than responding to one.