The Manchester Evening News is today celebrating victory in our Save Our Crossings campaign to keep lollipop ladies and men outside Manchester schools.
Almost 2,000 people – including hundreds of children – have signed an M.E.N petition calling on the council to safeguard funding for dozens of dangerous crossings used by the city's schoolchildren.
And following our campaign the council last night said they will keep patrols at all high or medium risk sites.
The news means that only a handful of low-risk crossings will be scrapped – in addition to 60 which went early on in the review.
We revealed a fortnight ago how all 156 of Manchester's school crossings had been placed under review and rated red, amber or green - according to whether they are considered high, medium or low risk – as the patrols budget faced an £800,000 cut unless money could be found elsewhere.
We called on the town hall to ensure a lollipop lady or man at every medium-risk or high-risk crossing in the city.
The money has now been found through the education budget to guarantee that the 38 most dangerous 'red' sites will continue to be patrolled in 2012/13.
The council has also promised they will find funding for 51 medium-risk – or amber – crossings and said an announcement about where that money will come from will be made in the new year.
Parents, teachers and schoolchildren who have campaigned to save their lollipop wardens from the axe were celebrating today.
A total of 1989 residents – including more than 200 children – signed the MEN petition.
Mum Cheryl Twomey, who helped collect almost 400 petition signatures around Chorlton, said: “It just goes to show that the council does listen to residents’ opinions.
“They have taken on board Manchester residents’ strength of feeling which is really positive and heartening - I’m delighted.
“For them to come back to us so quickly after the handing over of the petition is a great result. We couldn’t have done it without the M.E.N.”
Coun Paul Andrews, the council's executive member for neighbourhood services, and Coun Afzal Khan, executive member for children's services, made the announcement after collecting the M.E.N petition from children at Alma Park primary school in Levenshulme – and adding their own names to it yesterday.
Coun Andrews said: “We would like to thank the Manchester Evening News for highlighting the importance of high and medium risk crossings. I am glad we are now in a position to reassure parents and children that these highly valued patrols will be maintained.
"We are today giving a commitment to find the funding for medium risk crossings and we are working hard to achieve that objective.
“At the moment we are examining all council budgets at this end and will make an announcement in January."
Coun Khan said: “We have said throughout that children’s safety is our top priority. I am glad that we can demonstrate this through a solution which preserves crossings across the city where they are most needed.
“It was never our intention to stop patrols at high and medium risk crossings but we have been left in a difficult funding position, where we have needed to make huge savings across the board, and have had to go through a painstaking process to come up with a solution.”
The council's funding difficulties follow a 21 per cent cut in their central government grant money, forcing them to find savings of £170m over two years.
Patrols cost around £6,000-a-year to run. Of the 156 servicing Manchester's schools, 36, classed as low risk, had already been discontinued this year because wardens either retired or accepted voluntary redundancy as part of town hall job cuts. A further 24 crossings, which had not had regular cover for some time, were also scrapped early on in the review.
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great news this its nice to see sense prevail.whats more important than childrens safety...well done !!
Fantastic. Now drivers can continue to take no responsibilty for their actions. i mean .. Without a person in a yellow jacket there ... You can whiz past a school at 70mph, right?
And I assume the MEN are covering the costs of this 'victory'?
I suppose the outgoing - as in 'out of office' - Withington MP, John Leech, will try and take some credit for this decision?
It won't help him.
He, and his party of disingenuous upstarts, will be erased from the city's political landscape soon enough.
What about the road safety team who educate children in crossing safely and using roads AWAY from schools, when there are no school crossing patrols to see them over the road? Too late for them I fear...
Good, there is no monetary figure large enough to equate with child safety.
Well done to the MEN for highlighting this issue - to be fair, the Council were always going to u-turn on this. Playing politics with children's lives is very dangerous and desperately cynical. I am afraid that is what you have seen this Labour Council do... again and again. They always had the money and anyone who knows anything about the way the Labour Party handles itself in Manchester will be aware of this.
Last year in Manchester there were 236 children (under 15 years old) injured in road 'accidents' - 5 outside schools in school hours, and 231 at other times.Now this would no doubt be higher if it wasn't for the school crossing patrols, but the Road Saftey team do sterling work in schools, visiting with road safety duo ToGo and NoGo. For a fraction of the cost of school crossing patrols the road safety team deliver education in a way that kids remember and learn from - when your Mum or Dad or a teacher told you did you listen? Probably not, but when Tufty was on the telly and the Green Cross Code man showed you you listened!
Please save Manchester Road Safety, and childrens lives!
What will be cut instead? Watch this space.....
What's the deal with having crossing ladies at traffic light controlled pedestrian crossings??
'Save Our Crossings campaign will keep children safe' as your headline read recently.
Two quotes from the article are -
"Nobody wants to hit a child on their way to work - this is not an education issue it is a community issue.” How does this person think kids learn - is that not education, teaching them to cross the road safely?
"It just means we know the children are going to arrive here safely in the morning ready to learn.” What about the rest of the children's life - at the weekend, in the eveing, when there are no crossing patrols to get little Johnny safely over the road? This is where the in-scholl education from the Raod Safety team comaes in. Or came in until the Council disbanded it through cuts - save money or save lives? I know what gets votes.
“All our hard work has paid off and the safety of our children and other children is secured." Only on the way to and from school when they have an adult to help them cross the road - woudn't you like it more if they could do it - SAFELY - for themselves at times when there's no-one to help?
Manchester Council - do what's right.
I can't believe that the MEN think that their campaign has been successful. The medium and high risk sites were never in danger- the review was to find out which sites were low risk and which could therefore be lost through natural wastage. It is the lack of road safety education taking place in Manchester which is the real concern as Angie points out. Lets hope the MEN can take up their baton and be equally 'victorious'.
Childrens Safety is paramount, perhaps we can now start seeing some sensible parking by the parents! Instead of those who wold park in the classroom if they could!!!
MEN- perhaps you should take your campaign to the Government? Or better still perhaps the banks (who have been let off lightly for their errors in judgement) could sponsor the school crosing patrols?
''Coun Andrews said: “We would like to thank the Manchester Evening News for highlighting the importance of high and medium risk crossings.''
You mean you were not aware without the MEN pointing this out????
To think we actually pay to have these clowns run the city......
So glad the Council has seen common sence.!
The council states it costs 6K a year per crossing. Well if they had not paid £172.000 to a brewery for the former Goldern Tavern public house on Rochdale road, then that would of gone a long way in securing the future of a number of patrols.
What's more annoying is that the new Youth Zone corner of Factory lane wanted to orignally use the former pub but now cannot afford to 'kit' the interior out, so the council is now having to demolish it which is costing more money and then land scaping the area.
Well done to the MEN for championing this cause. A well deserved victory but still a cause for concern across the country where more local authority cuts threaten the lives of our children. Please, please sign the petition at http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/3221
and keep all the children safe.