New Zebra Crossing

13 September 2011

On Monday 5 September Cirencester College and Deer Park School opened a new zebra crossing to ensure the safe passage of pupils and other pedestrians across the main college drive. The welcome addition of railings guides the pupils away from the main entrance towards the zebra crossing and, significantly, reduces the potential for conflict with cars, buses and cyclists.

The need for a zebra crossing at this point was identified as a core objective within Deer Park’s School Travel Plan. In the consultation, pedestrian access onto the school and college campus was highlighted as an area of concern by pupils, parents and staff. The crossing is jointly funded and the Head, Principal and members of each institution’s governing bodies hope it will be the first of similar collaborative projects to improve the shared campus.

Deer Park’s Assistant Head, Jerry Richer, liaised with the team from Cirencester College to plan the crossing: ‘Colleagues’ primary objective was to improve the safety of both the users of the access road and footpaths to and from the school and college. The crossing project continues the development and cooperation between the school and college in improving the shared campus.’

Headteacher, Chiquita Henson, is very relieved this important objective has now been achieved: ‘As an Academy we have been able to prioritise our spending to meet local needs and we will continue to explore ways of safeguarding our pupils. We are particularly grateful to Cirencester College for their support with this project.’

Kim Clifford, commented, ‘As the new Principal of Cirencester College, I am delighted that Deer Park School and Cirencester College have been able to work together, pooling our increasingly scarce resources, to create this much safer crossing point for Deer Park School pupils. This is a great example of our intention to work together in the future to continue to make improvements to our shared site - to the benefit of both institutions.’