A Romford School Street has been labelled a success by councillors, with reviews of the schemes en-masse hinted at.
The implementation of School Streets has been key to the council’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions and promote active travel across the borough.
They see certain roads closed to traffic on weekdays during term time, when pupils are picked up and dropped off.
However, they are still open to walkers, cyclists, permit holders and residents, with others also able to apply for exemptions, including Blue Badge holders and emergency service vehicles.
Ten new schools started taking part in an 18-month School Street trial from September 5.
The scheme at Hylands School was recently discussed in a meeting attended by its headmaster Steve Bowers, the council’s engineer, and Cllrs Jane Keane and Keith Darvill - the latter of whom is cabinet member for the environment.
Following the meeting, Cllr Keane described the Hylands School scheme, which was made permanent in January, as “successful”.
"So far as the residents of Benjamin Close are concerned, they welcome the street’s scheme," she claimed.
“It’s worked. It’s had the desired effect.”
However, she said there remain two primary issues - the “persistent behaviour” of parents breaking the rules and that Globe Road, which connects to Benjamin Close, is “really narrow”.
This means there is "still quite a lot of parking that’s unsafe”, she said, with Cllr Keane adding the council’s “top priority is to make that as safe as possible”.
Cllr Darvill said the meeting, and the School Streets schemes in general, fits into a host of the local authority's strategies to cut carbon emissions and promote active travel.
As part of this, he said meetings are starting to take place with schools to see how the council can support them with their travel plans for parents.
“We want to encourage more travel to school without cars,” he said.
“You cannot force people what to do, but we want to be encouraging much more active travel to school.”
Cllr Darvill said that as a whole, the schemes do need a review.
“Some of them have been in place for a while,” he said.
Part of this is to assess the feasibility of each case, with Cllr Darvill noting: “There are some schools where it’s very difficult to do it, because of their locations in the town centre and so on.”
However, he added there are no fixed dates for this in the diary, and the approach will be: “If things are working well, we will encourage that.”
The implementation of School Streets has not been without controversy, with criticisms including unfair fines and pushing traffic onto neighbouring roads.
Cllr Keane called on a collective effort to ensure they work as hoped.
“It literally is just chipping away at that [mentality of] getting as near to the school as possible,” she said.
Hylands School was approached for comment.
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