Over 50% of parents would let their children walk to school with safer routes

By Brendan Grehan

OVER 50 per cent of parents in the Lucan area would let their children walk or cycle to school if the routes were safer, a new survey has found.

Five schools in the Lucan Road and Chapel Hill areas were surveyed by Councillor William Lavelle.

He received nearly 300 responses. Nearly 35 per cent of parents said their children walk to school daily. Only 7.9 per cent of parents surveyed thought that the route to school was safe to walk/cycle and 60.8 per cent thought it was unsafe at specific points.

Nearly 55 per cent of respondents said they would allow their children to walk or cycle to school if the route was safer. 25.9 per cent of respondents said they would permit their children to walk or cycle to school when weather allowed.

Parents raised four issues of concern. Over 60 per cent rated vehicles parked on footpaths as a concern. Footpaths too narrow was selected by 56.4 per cent. Speeding or unsafe driving was selected by 51.8 per cent and a lack of guard-rails was selected.

The footpaths between St Andrew’s NS and St Mary’s Boys NS were chosen as a specific problem area by 28.8 per cent.

The lay-by outside St Joseph’s was selected by 19 per cent and the junction at the top of Chapel Hill was selected by 14.7 per cent.

Other problematic locations which featured repeatedly in comments included the Access road to Lucan Heights/Esker Lawns, Woodies Junction, Lucan Bridge and in vicinity of the mini-roundabout next to Ulster Bank and the footpath between Ballydowd Grove and Woodville.

Cllr Lavelle told The Echo that many parents would allow their children to walk to school if the route was safer.

He said that he will be using the information gathered from the survey to push for work to be carried out to make the routes safer.