THE PATROL Officers for St Mary’s Primary School in Beaminster look a bit young these days don’t they? That’s because these children no longer have a lollipop lady (as you and I call them). Why? Because when the last lollipop lady resigned, Dorset County Council decided not to replace her.  

Much money was spent by the government to encourage us to walk to school. Great. But in these days of cutbacks children need to meet the National Criteria to cross the road to school safely. There is a formula that tells council officers if pupils deserve a safe crossing or not. Council Terms: “the site needs to meet the National Criteria”. St Mary’s is below the required criteria. The numbers don’t add up. Where and how this formula has been devised I do not know but it is very unlikely to have been brainstormed in rural England. 

On 2 September 2010, just before 9am, the first day back at school, 36 children under ten years old crossed the road, 14 on their own. In the meanwhile, 162 cars drove along Clay Lane. In case you don’t know Clay Lane, it’s a lane only by name. It is in fact a large B road into Beaminster with a busy shop opposite the school where shoppers are keen to park as close to the door as possible.  

What struck me was that the Road Safety Officer at Dorset County Council came on the first day of school to ‘carry out a site survey’ and determine whether there are enough kids crossing the road. Don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t call the first day back at school a typical kind of day, especially for a Primary School. I took my child to school that day. Otherwise I don’t. I wonder if they’ll be waiting for Met Office weather warnings for the next site survey. 

Generally speaking, councils aren’t renowned for speedy decisions but on this occasion, they surveyed, wrote a letter to St Mary’s school and took the funding away all on the same day. Good to see efficiency can be achieved. 

Let’s talk money now. A lollipop lady’s wage is in the region of £3,200 per year. New council offices cost millions. Where would you rather your local taxes went?

Dorset County Council’s response

Editor’s Note: I asked Dorset County Council for a comment on Monday and here one is, from road safety officer Alan Proctor.

Funding

Firstly, the headline “No money for primary school lollipop lady” is factually incorrect. The issue here is not about funding. It is about meeting nationally agreed criteria to ensure that the highest risk sites are given priority. Had the site met the national criteria, Dorset County Council would have recruited a new patrol in line with current council policy.

National guidelines

The national guidelines adopted by the county council, as approved by the elected members, were produced by a working group from the Local Authority Road Safety Officers Association (LARSOA), now Road Safety GB, in 2008, replacing the previous version produced in 2003.

The guidelines state that crossing sites should be assessed using a formula of the number of children crossing, multiplied by the number of vehicles passing the site in the busiest 30 minutes, squared.

For a site to have a patrol this figure must be at least 4 million. If a site doesn’t reach this figure, there is a lower figure at which the council can apply a multiplier, which adds a safety “weighting”.

Survey results

Following the resignation of the patrol over the summer holiday, I carried out the survey on Thursday 2 September, the first day of term, to ascertain if the site met the criteria. I was aware from a previous informal survey I had done that the site probably wouldn’t meet the criteria. The count on the day was 944,784, a long way short of 4 million and not even enough to add a multiplier. Even if I could have added factors, the absolute maximum multiplier I could have applied was 2.594, which would still only result in a total of 2.46 million, still well short of the criteria figure.

Beaminster Town Council could pay

The county council has a policy in place where the option to fund a site that doesn’t meet the criteria is offered to the town or parish council. Two sites are currently funded by town and parish councils, in Swanage and Upton. We copied our letter to the head teacher to the town council. We will be happy to discuss any possible alternative options with both the school and the town council. 

On the money

Editor’s Note: I’ve left the headline unchanged for two reasons. Firstly, so as to give Dorset County Council the chance to be critical of it. Fair’s fair.

It’s clear from Mr Proctor’s explanation that there is a formula to be followed and he has followed it.

But what’s not so clear is why, in that case, there was money for a lollipop lady before. Was that funding a mistake? If the previous post holder hadn’t resigned, would Dorset County Council have got rid of her? Whether it was a mistake, or whether it wasn’t, it seems to me that there was money flowing into a Beaminster service before - and now there isn’t. Which is the second reason why I’ve left the headline unchanged – for now.

Time to ask Dorset County Council more questions!

More questions answered and raised

I put more questions to Dorset County Council, and a spokesman said that the council was obliged to re-survey sites when a patrol retired or resigned. That’s what happened in Beaminster.

St Mary’s Primary School only had a lollilop lady in the first place because she was, in the jargon, “historic” – in other words, she began before the new criteria came into force.

Moving away now from what the county council spokesman said, she was a survivor from a more generous age.

Anyway, it would seem to be the case that the rules depriving St Mary’s came into force under a Labour government and the county council had no choice but to implement them.

Will Beaminster Town Council now pay instead?

It seems extremely unlikely that the Coalition Government will change the rules.

Will people have to band together and volunteer in a “Big Society” way? But then who would pay for the CRB checks?

Re-phrase it less politically (perhaps – when you’ve mulled over these things for a while, every word becomes charged): Will parents and children have to help each other cross the road?

      

Related posts:

1. Council submits plans to move Mountjoy School PLANS to rebuild Bridport’s Mountjoy School in Beaminster have been...
2. UPDATED: Critics savage Dorset County Council music video A MUSIC video made for Dorset County Council has been scorned...
3. Underground carbon storage proposed for Dorset: money-spinner or death trap? Note: This article was first published in October. It’s been slightly revised and is...
4. It’s “show us your money” time for Bridport Literary & Scientific Institute campaigners DORSET COUNTY Council has insisted that Bridport's historic Literary &...
5. Risk of bricks falling onto drivers forces closure of Beaminster Tunnel for five weeks THE HISTORIC Beaminster Tunnel on the A3066 north of Beaminster...