COVENTRY MESSAGE BOARD

A proposed new route would take heavy traffic past the school gates and playground



Teachers, parents and pupils at a Coventry primary school are "distraught" over plans to bring traffic off the Ring Road and past the school gates.

Coventry City Council's plans to redirect traffic past St Osburg's Primary School has sparked huge concern.

The proposed plans will create a left turn and open up the ring road to bring traffic directly past the school gates and playground.

The council has said creating a sliproad to remove a right turn from Holyhead Road into Barras Lane will reduce Nitrogen Dioxide emissions in the city.

But St Osburg's school headteacher Nicola Rynott has blasted the plans, saying it will turn the school into a "traffic island".

Ms Rynott said: "The flow of traffic will be directed from the ring road up this small street, past our school, right past our school entrance, past the playground where children are spending their break times, lunchtimes, having their PE lessons.

"It's just bringing lots of danger, potential speeding traffic right past the entrance of the school as well as the levels of pollution that I know they're trying to reduce on roads in the city but bringing it right past [us]."

St Osburg's School already faces the ring road and is right next door to Holyhead road, one of the most polluted roads in Coventry.

The proposed plans are currently under consultation with Coventry City Council and residents in the process of sharing their views.

Ms Rynott called out the plans, saying: "If we were in a more affluent area, these plans wouldn't be considered."

In addition to accessibility concerns for parents, Ms Rynott added: "We're becoming a island surrounded by traffic and I am just so worried for the health and safety for my children now, and for the future, but also for the viability of our school.

"Who really wants to send their children to a school that's just surrounded by traffic?"

Ms Rynott said the parents are "distraught" about the plans and the children have been spreading the petition around the community to get as many signatures against the plans as possible.

'Ridiculous' plans for highway next to Coventry primary school likely to be scrapped



Plans by Coventry City Council to put a highway next to a primary school are likely to be abandoned. A scheme to put in a link road between Coventry's ring-road and Upper Hill Street was announced as part of plans to reduce pollution on Holyhead Road and improve air quality throughout the city without a costly Clean Air Zone.

But it has been fiercely opposed by St Osburg's School which would see traffic soar outside the school gates, and almost a thousand people signed a petition against it. Now the plan appears close to being scrapped, raising fears that a Clean Air Zone - which would charge residents for driving the most polluting cars - could be introduced.

Papers for a council cabinet member meeting next week (June 15) state that the authority is considering "alternative solutions" to the link road. As well as local objections, the report notes the expense of the scheme and the need for government permission to use school land.

"The council is currently working on alternative solutions that avoid the need for the difficult and expensive engineering works in Upper Hill Street," it states. DEFRA have said they are aware that the council is looking to change their local air quality plan - which the Upper Hill Street scheme is a part of.

But the council's Director of Transportation and Highways, Colin Knight, refused to confirm that the scheme will be scrapped. "Clearly there's strong opposition, for understandable reasons, in that area," he told BBC CWR.

"We've also encountered other engineering issues in that area. Ground conditions upon investigation have proven to be an issue. There's a lot of utilities under Upper Hill Street with level differences - again you know are going to pose problems, there's a piece of land that we needed to acquire.

"There's a whole host of reasons there, why, you know, it's proven to be quite a challenge. As I say, unfortunately though I can't say to you it's dead this morning, because we are having to investigate an alternative.

"But I can assure you we're putting in all our efforts now into making sure this alternative works." Cllr Ryan Simpson, who backed one of the petitions against the plans, said the scheme was "an epic **** up from the council."

"It's ridiculous, putting a slip road in front of a primary school," he told the Local Democracy Reporting Service. "It doesn't fit between the school lane and the ring-road.

"They have wasted time, we need to see some better solutions." He thinks the council are now "going to have to put in the Clean Air Zone."

"If they can't do this, there's going to be a congestion charge." If a Clean Air Zone is brought in it would cover much of the city and charge drivers of the most polluting cars £12.50 per day.

Controversial Coventry plans to link road by school with ring road will be axed



Plans to link a Coventry road where a primary school is based with the city's ring road will be axed by the council. The move to "open up" Upper Hill Street so less traffic uses Holyhead Road had been opposed by hundreds of residents, a local church and St Osburg's school.

The council revealed it was looking at an alternative almost two years ago after the backlash and other problems with the scheme. But yesterday (6 March) an officer confirmed the plan will be removed from council measures to tackle pollution in the city.

Asked why the move is no longer going ahead, Head of Transport John Seddon said it was due to falling levels of pollution and the time it would take. "The more that we did design work on Upper Hill Street, the clearer it was that it was going to be a longer term scheme to deliver and that took it outside this programme, basically," he said.

At the moment the council is still officially required to deliver it under measures to improve air quality in the city, he added. But he also said government air quality chiefs accept that the case for the work has been "superseded."