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Blisworth's Lollipop Lady Spring 2014
Recently the village school hosted a sponsored walk in a bid to raise £3,000 and keep its lollipop lady patrolling a busy road in Blisworth. This was because 3 years ago the NCC cut their funding to crossing wardens (ie. lollipop ladies) in a bid to save £201,000 within the County. Since then Blisworth Community Primary School has relied on outside sponsorship to keep Mrs. Dunkley patrolling the High Street, which bears the brunt of a lot of traffic leaving the A43 and A508. But now a three-year agreement with Milton Keynes-based company, TMX Recruit, has come to an end so the 220-pupil school needs to find the money itself. Part of the problem is that the crossing site does not normally qualify for a zebra crossing or a panda crossing because the road is busy only during the two half-hour periods at the beginning and end of school hours when the safety of the children is paramount. The village is bisected by the High Street and children have homes on either one side or the other or they need to get to their parents' pick-up car that might be placed one side or the other of the High Street. In a bid to solve the problem, the Parish Council arranged for Orbit Homes to provide by the "106 Process" a zebra crossing in association with their application to build 27 new homes on the side of the High Street that is opposite the school. Orbit seem to have delayed their plan to get on and build the houses and Highways, who are the arbiters for where the crossing will be placed, have not yet finished negotiations with Orbit over the details. There are various driveways and areas of unacceptably narrow pavement along the street so finding a best location seems fraught. Even so, when the zebra crossing is established there is a remaining issue of our expecting the sometimes unaccompanied young children to behave with care at the threshold of the zebra. For this reason, the Parish Council support a crossing and a patrol warden. Parenthetic rant: Back in 1993/4, when the village acquired its multi-facetted traffic-calming, a university-based highways consultancy group was brought in to do all the designs, which were adopted by NCC Highways. The crossing selected for the school children and lollipop warden was the same one that had been in use for over 25 years, upgraded with a strip of distinctively coloured tarmac across the road. It has subsequently been used week-in and week-out for over 20 years. Now, in 2014, it would be a very low-cost exercise to paint the zebra in the same place. But no! Currently we seem to have the NCC Highways department plumbing for a crossing location a few yards west of this place that frankly seems less than the ideal. Surely villagers, parents, motorists know what a "not-invented here" factor can do and may grant themselves a certain cynicism. While such questions are sorted out there is the task of finding £3000 each year for the crossing warden and there is therefore a continuance of village fund-raising with this aim. The Blisworth Parish Council has agreed to provide £1,000 to the school towards keeping Clare’s patrol for at least the next three years. *footnote: Picture and introductory sentences are based on the Northampton Chronicle coverage. |
