Safety concern over lack of road patrol staff

THERE is clearly an issue and parents are “deeply worried” about the safety of Fife school crossings, according to one councillor.

Fife Council provides staffed crossings at 131 locations to minimise the safety risk to pupils and their families in these places.

However, 19 are currently unstaffed because of vacancies, leaving children and families to navigate busy roadways on their own.

Liberal Democrat councillor Aude Boubaker-Calder has called these crossing patrols “essential” and “vital” for making sure that children, especially primary school children, are safe going to and from school.

In her own Dunfermline central ward, she said that children are currently crossing Queensferry Road, a busy dual carriageway, to get to Pitreavie Primary School without a crossing guard. She called the situation “absolutely crazy”.

Tariq Ditta, head of Fife’s Facilities Management Services, presented a school crossings and school travel report to the environment, transportation and climate change scrutiny committee meeting yesterday morning.

The report was the result of a full council motion last September which asked councillors to “note the importance of school crossing patrol officers (lollipop people)” in ensuring pupil safety.

The motion, put forward by Councillor BoubakerCalder also highlighted that the number of school crossing patrol guards in Fife reduced from 76 in 2015-16 to 56 in 2022-23.

Even now, as per Mr Ditta’s report, there are 64 dedicated school crossing patrol officers. The other 48 lollipop patrols are staffed by school janitors and there are still 19 unstaffed crossings.

Mr Ditta has said the job has been extremely difficult to recruit for as it can only offer a very limited number of hours and those hours must be worked in a split shift. As a result, the job is low paid – less than £300 per four weeks.