Wokingham Borough Council is reassuring parents and residents that plans are in place to keep any disruption caused by the expansion of Winnersh Primary School to a minimum.
The school needs an additional class to allow more Winnersh residents to send their children to a local school. The council is also aware of concerns among the community about extra school traffic. Therefore, an integral part of the plans for expansion is a package of measures to reduce any traffic disruption for local residents. This includes:
- a new drop off zone on the school site. This will be managed by the school to provide a flow of cars with parents pausing to unload their children before releasing the space for another vehicle. This will only be available at school opening and closing times and will allow parents to turn in Poplar Lane without the need for a three-point turn
- additional car parking on site, so staff don’t park on local roads.
- an improved footpath and new entrances to the site to encourage more parents to walk their children to school.
- parking controls at strategic points on local roads to ensure cars can move freely. The school will request additional enforcement once the new restrictions are in place.
- reducing the number of trips by car to the site by encouraging walking and car sharing through a School Travel Plan.
- plans to find sites for ‘park and stride’ and walking bus schemes, enabling parents who must drive to school to park away from the site and to work together to help more children to walk in (subject to agreement with land owners for parking).
The construction project itself will be managed by Wokingham Borough Council, working with contractors. All have extensive experience of managing projects to avoid nuisance to neighbours and to keep children safe and learning well. Safeguards include:
- delivery times to avoid the start and finish of the school day
- restricted hours of work to avoid unsociable hours
- particularly noisy activities to be carried out in school holidays.
- securely fenced and separate work areas
- modern construction methods to minimise the amount of work that needs to be done on site.
Councillor Rob Stanton, executive member for education services, said: "I know that parents and the school community are concerned about both extra traffic and noise from the school expansion project. I also know that Winnersh parents need these additional places so their children don’t need to be driven to schools outside their community. For that reason we are doing everything in our power to ensure that school-run traffic is kept to a minimum and managed to ensure local residents can go about their daily business with the minimum of inconvenience."
At a meeting last week (January 26), the governors of Winnersh Primary School supported the ‘expansion of the school on the grounds of the educational benefits for the pupils and the improved facilities for both children and staff’. They also recognised the additional traffic the plans would ‘create in the locality’ and governors are working with the council on ways to mitigate this.
The planning application (reference F/2012/0042) for the school expansion has now been submitted and the formal consultation is under way. Comments need to be submitted by February 14 in one of the following ways:
