Why pilot project to ban cars from school gates failed at this Fife primary

Fife Council launched pilot School Exclusion Zone (SEZ) project at Denend Primary and Nursery School in Cardenden. It was one of three schools chosen to prevent non-residential traffic from using the roads outside school entrances at set periods of the school day – typically during pick up and drop off times. Trials were also staged at St Marie’s Primary School in Kirkcaldy, and Pitcoudie Primary School in Glenrothes.

But councillors at this week’s meeting of Cowdenbeath area committee committee that it had failed to make the roads safer for children and the 18-month scheme, which has ended, hadn’t worked.

The council said it found “no clear evidence” that the exclusion zone had worked to make the roads around the school gates safer.

“It’s disappointing because it’s something we worked really hard to have included,” Councillor Rosemary Liewald (SNP, Lochgelly, Cardenden and Benarty) said. Councillor Linda Erskine (Labour) also found it “incredibly disappointing that parents had not participated” fully.

Keith Johnston, traffic management engineer, told councillors there was anecdotal information that a pedestrian had been involved in a collision with a vehicle outside the school during the course of the trial.

Cllr Liewald also heard of a near miss involving a child in the last week, and after visiting the school in recent days, she said the situation outside of the gates was “chaotic and noisy with a huge amount of traffic moving back and forth at pace”.

She added: “I spoke to a couple parents and they agreed that initially when the zone came into being, it was very much respected but then it dwindled off.”

Mr Johnston confirmed that enforcement and compliance were the main stumbling blocks. A year into the trial, 94% of survey respondents said there was low or very compliance with the exclusion zone rules. Only 12% of people felt the area outside of the school gates was safer, and although afternoon pick-up traffic fell by 16%, morning drop off traffic went up by 21%.

“For restrictions to have credibility, there has to be good compliance,, which unfortunately hasn’t happened to a satisfactory degree at this location,” Mr Johnston said. “These restrictions, because they’re a moving traffic offence, are something that can only be enforced by police. We do not have the power to enforce such a restriction - and although they have attended on some occasions, they can’t be there as often as perhaps is needed to ensure compliance.”

At the end of the trial, councillors, school leaders, and council officers met to discuss the findings and the next steps.

“There was unanimous agreement that the restrictions weren’t fulfilling their objectives to a satisfactory degree and that the trial should be allowed to expire,” he said.

“We had a further meeting with Denend Parent Council, and again, the decision was clearly unanimous.”

The pilot project at St Marie’s is set to continue after councillors studied its results last week.