Astrea Academy, Burngreave, is first secondary to have a School Street

  • 8 months ago
Astrea Academy Sheffield, in Burngreave, campaigned to improve road safety outside the school after a number of near misses at busy times.
As a result, Sheffield City Council designated the area as one of its new School Streets. The initiative was designed to reduce the amount of traffic in an area, create safer school environments and cleaner air while encouraging pupils and parents to adopt 'active travel'.
Andover Street, which splits Astrea Academy Secondary and Primary Academy, is now closed to traffic between 8am and 9.15am and 2.30pm and 3.45pm Monday to Friday from the junction with Fox Street.
Transcript
00:00 I want to make my school the safest secondary school in Sheffield.
00:06 We're here at Australia Academy Sheffield where we've just launched our first school street
00:11 at a secondary school which is a glowing example of active travel in our city.
00:15 Working alongside the active travel ambassadors here at Australia we have installed a series of
00:20 planters across Andover Street which closes the road for the morning and afternoon school run.
00:27 It means pupils and their parents can have a safe school environment and a healthy atmosphere
00:33 during their journey. It also encourages them to adopt an active travel lifestyle by walking,
00:39 cycling and wheeling around.
00:41 When we go to school before the barrier they used to be trapped by lots of parents with
00:45 stupid chairs and normally students would have to back up just in case they don't get there
00:50 and it was in a safe environment so at least now when you put the barrier there
00:54 it's proper safe when we go upstairs towards the gate students can just cross the road easily
00:58 it's a much calmer environment.
01:00 I'd like people to travel in a way that's more beneficial to our environment because
01:05 we have to protect what we have now because we're going to be in this world in the future
01:11 so why don't we preserve it now and not wait until it's gone.
01:15 It's like more safer, safety and calm and that didn't happen so I want to make my school
01:22 the most safest secondary school in Sheffield.
01:27 It's not just about our scholars, not just about our staff but our wider community as
01:30 well actually we had a lot of complaints around cars, too much traffic within the roads and
01:35 what's most important for us is actually we work with our community that we serve as well
01:40 so that our partners across the road from us because they are just across the road are
01:45 also on board with us so that we can keep the community safe for them as well.
01:48 We're an ambitious city in Sheffield and we're committed to enabling people to have
01:53 better choice about how they move across the city and that means making sure that we have
01:57 an ambitious active travel programme here.

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