A bid has been made by Rodney Bass, Conservative Cabinet Member for Highways and Transportation, to remove lollipop men and women from our streets. The reason to axe school crossing patrols is their cost.
UPDATE: Plans scrapped due to social action! It seems that the combination of outrage from parents and the somewhat unusual coalition of Labour, Green, Lib Deb and UKIP has helped force a reconsideration of this proposal.
Lollipop men and women have been helping children and parents to cross busy roads to and from schools for decades. Many roads have no safe cross area and commuter rush hour traffic always coincides with the school run.
The plans were only to stop crossing patrols where there is a pedestrian an zebra crossing already. However, as we all know, many motorists fail to stop at zebra crossings and children are unable to identify when a car is slowing down and when it is not. In fact, in February this year a driver hit a four year-old on a zebra crossing in Witham. The child was walking home from nursery.
This crazy suggestion by the conservative MP resulted in Lib Dem, Labour, UKIP and Green councillors standing together to ask Rodney Bass to abandon the plans.
