Working in partnership with Sustrans, Sefton Council have engaged with four local schools in the North Park area in Bootle and the wider community. These were:
- All Saints Catholic Primary School
- Thomas Gray Primary School
- St Elizabeth’s Catholic School
- King’s Lander Primary Academy
- Brunswick Youth and Community Centre
- Gateway Collective
- YKids
The project looks at the specific challenges faced in the journey to school and the surrounding North Park area.
Aim of the scheme
Sefton Council and Sustrans engaged with the community to:
- identify how children travel to school in the area,
- Identify changes to make walking, wheeling, or cycling into school safer
- To produce a prioritised list of solutions and improvements, that Sefton Council will seek further funding to design and build.
49% of school pupils worried about air pollution near their school. The School Neighbourhood project aims to encourage more pupils to walk, wheel and cycle to school, leading to reduced air pollution around school.
What we did
Through surveys, school workshops and pop-ups, the Council have used the insight provided by the whole school community to shape designs to create safer routes to school for walking, wheeling, and cycling.
The pupils had a chance to get creative with their design ideas and influence positive changes in their own local area. Local people have worked with us to find solutions that work for everyone.
Project stages
Sessions for the schools and wider community, hosted by Sustrans, were held to find out the challenges and opportunities for each school area. This included working with pupils to map their school journeys and create a ‘Big Street Survey Manifesto’ with suggested solutions.
Insights have been gathered from over 90 pupils, with over 630 comments from members of the wider community. A ‘masterplan’ of ideas has been produced.
The next stage of the project is to hold prioritisation sessions with pupils, the wider school community, and community groups about the ideas in the masterplan, to get see which ones people think are the most important.
Sustrans have produced a story map outlining the project timeline, as well as suggested potential ideas for improvement in the area, based on feedback from local people.
Sefton Council will continue to engage with the schools to keep momentum and share their project outcomes.