‘Proposal to axe lollipop patrols will risk lives’

LOLLIPOP men and women will no longer operate during lunch breaks at most Dundee primary schools if plans to restructure the service go ahead.

The city council wants to withdraw the dinnertime crossing patrols after the summer holidays.

Services will be retained only at schools where a significant number of pupils use the crossing points at lunch.

Lollipop man Ian Loney, 70, has worked at Ancrum Road Primary School for a decade and said he believed it is about saving money but could cost lives.

He said: “It’s just going to take one person to get hit by a car because of it to show what a mistake it is.

“Denise Matthew from Tayside Contracts came down to speak to us about it.”

Mr Loney said crossing patrol staff have been told they could make up lost wag es by working as cleaners but that he has refused that offer.

He said: “They have asked us to come in on our days off. We used to get inservice days off but they want us to come in and pick up leaves and paper. I said ‘No, I’m a lollipop man’.

“They also want cleaners to help pupils cross the road if one of us is off. They basically want us all to interchange our jobs.”

Although there are traffic lights directly outside Ancrum Road Primary School and at the junction with Logie Street where a second l ollipop person stands, parents still said they feared the consequences of removing patrols.

But West End Liberal Democrat councillor Fraser Macpherson, who sits on the school parking and pupil safety working group, said the proposed restructuring is down to lack of demand rather than cuts.

He said: “It is about low numbers. It makes no sense in resource terms to have crossing patrollers standing where nobody is crossing.”

A council spokeswoman said: “We are looking into the delivery of school crossing patrollers at lunchtime on a school by school basis.

“The school parking and pupil safety working group has backed this decision and we will continue to engage with them as we take proposals forward.”