Air pollution has dropped significantly while road safety has increased around one Angus primary school.
Monitors fitted outside Ferryden Primary School around six months ago revealed a decrease in air pollution around the school.
The data coincides directly with the introduction of a traffic exclusion zone on the only road with direct access to the school by Angus Council last August.
Traffic around the Montrose school at morning drop-off time has been reduced by 37.5% since the exclusion zone was put in place, and by 68.5% at afternoon pick-up time.
Head teacher Michelle Mackay says that as a result, road safety around the school has improved and many more children are now walking part or all of the way to school.
She said: “We only have one entrance and exit into school and it used to get quite congested.
“Now parents can’t park outside the school during drop-off and pick-up and if they do they will get a ticket from the parking warden, who visits often.
“It’s made the area safer for children and the knock-on effect of that is that it’s reduced air pollution.”
Mrs Mackay says some parents now opt to leave cars at nearby spots identified as parking areas by the council and walk the rest of the way, while there has also been an increase in children walking the whole journey to school.
This – along with school work including a ‘park smarter’ project with P4-7 pupils and ‘Bikeability’ cycle training with P6 and P7s – has increased children’s activity levels.
Setting an example
The school was one of three Angus schools to trial part-time traffic exclusion zones, the others being Langlands Primary School, in Forfar and Muirfield Primary School, in Arbroath.
The projects proved so fruitful that the council’s communities committee agreed to make the exclusion zones outside these three schools permanent.
Similar traffic exclusion zones are to be tested around five more Angus schools:
- Andover Primary School, Brechin
- South Esk Primary School, Montrose
- Letham Primary School
- Liff Primary School
- Carlogie Primary School, Carnoustie
