Renewed calls for school crossing on busy Shinfield road
AN 11-year-old girl said she is ‘really scared’ of being hit by a car on a busy A-road where the council has refused to build a crossing.
Crosfields School pupil Sophia, who uses a crutch, said she has almost been hurt while trying to cross Shinfield Road, where the school is located.
Parents and staff at the school have been calling for a pedestrian crossing near the school’s entrances.
Wokingham Borough Council has said it has a ‘limited budget’ for installing crossings, and that other roads are in greater need.
Sophia said she finds crossing the road ‘quite a big challenge’.
She told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “Since June I’ve had my crutches and I have found it really hard to cross the road.
“A few times before, we were in front of a bus that stopped outside our house and we were just about to cross when a car came from behind.
“That was really, really scary because I almost got hurt.”
She added: “I don’t like crossing the road because it makes me really scared, wondering if I will be hit by a car?”
Crosfields School parents and staff want a new crossing, as the nearest ones are almost half a mile in either direction from the school’s main entrance.
Wokingham Borough Council said a survey of the number of pedestrians attempting to cross near the entrance, carried out in January 2022, showed there weren’t enough to justify a new crossing.
But Rachel Moore, parent of another child at the school, said the survey didn’t count pedestrians trying to cross near the school’s south entrance.
She argued that building a new crossing will encourage more children to walk to school – reducing traffic.
Ms Moore said: “We have more than enough people crossing and the whole idea is to encourage yet more pupils to cross and without a crossing we’re not going to be able to achieve that.
“I just can’t understand why there isn’t a crossing on an A-road.
“It just beggars belief.” Wokingham Conservatives leader and Earley and Woodley prospective parliamentary candidate Pauline Jorgensen is also pushing for a crossing.
Wokingham Borough Council has already carried out a new survey as the number of pupils at the school has increased.
Councillor Paul Fishwick – responsible for roads – said the highways department will use the data to make a new decision on whether to build a crossing.
But he said the data must meet government conditions, and be weighed against the need for crossings elsewhere.
He said: “Should there be a justification for a crossing in this location, then prioritising funding will need to be considered against competing demands for crossings already identified across the borough.
“The Department for Transport has criteria which must be met for new pedestrian crossings that include factors such as pedestrian numbers, traffic flow, road characteristics and safety considerations.
“The objective is to make sure crossings are located where they will be most beneficial and used regularly throughout the day.”