10 Croydon schools to get driving restrictions outside

Croydon council will roll out road restrictions outside 10 more schools.

It means parents could face a £130 fine for driving along the road at pick-up and drop-off times and will bring the total number of “school streets” in Croydon up to 43.

The new restrictions are set to come into force in February 2023, with the aim of reducing air pollution and improving road safety.

The 10 new schemes will be rolled out outside Elmwood Schools (Infant & Junior), Harris Academy Crystal Palace, Harris Academy Invictus, Harris Academy South Norwood, Kensington Primary, Norbury High, Minster Schools, Oasis Academy Byron, Rockmount Primary, St James the Great Primary and St Peter’s Primary.

The consultation about the 10 new locations had a low response rate of just nine per cent.

After sending out more than 10,600 letters to people living in a small radius of the school, only 1,020 residents responded.

The council received an additional 1,238 responses from those living beyond the 250m area that would not have received a council-issued leaflet.

Of those that responded the majority were against the new restrictions – 63 per cent of those living in the 250m area were not in favour of them, while almost 70 per cent of those that responded from outside the immediate area were against them.

A report going to Croydon council’s cabinet next week said: “The importance of community feedback is recognised and to ensure we are listening to the community, the recommendation is that the proposed schemes are taken forward as experiments to allow the community to assess the ‘real’ impacts of the schemes.”

The introduction of schemes is expected to cost £386,000 to implement and the collection of traffic and air quality data will cost another £60,000.

The changes will initially be introduced for 18 months and residents will be able to raise any objections during the first six-month of the trial.

A decision on whether to keep or remove the restrictions will be made at the end of the 18 months.

Pictured top: Croydon town hall (Picture Grahame Larter)