“We can’t wait for some horrible accident outside the school before we do anything”: No funding for safety schemes at school where driver hit child on bike, as council vows to “deal with fallout” from scrapping of controversial LTN

Cyclists in Exeter say they are “underwhelmed and disappointed” after the local council revealed that there is no funding for new school traffic safety schemes in an area where a low traffic neighbourhood initiative was controversially scrapped last year – and where children on bikes were hit by motorists flouting the traffic restrictions.

The revelation came at a meeting of Exeter’s Highways and Traffic Orders Committee (HATOC), which examined the outcome of a series of consultations and focus group discussions with residents and local schools, held to assess what could be done to promote road safety in the aftermath of the decision to scrap the city’s Active Streets trial early.

Despite the committee hearing that locals wanted action on road safety around schools, officers told the meeting there was no money currently available to implement these initiatives – while also insisting that they were determined to learn from the “mistakes” of last year’s LTN experiment.

> How to save a Low Traffic Neighbourhood: Overcoming hecklers, “dodgy” data, and political intrigue as councillors prevent early scrapping of active streets trial

Exeter’s Heavitree and Whipton ‘Active Streets’ scheme was introduced at the beginning of August 2023, as part of an 18-month trial by Devon County Council, and featured modal filters using bollards or planters in a bid to prevent through traffic and increase safety, encourage walking and cycling, and reduce pollution on some residential roads, while bus gates were installed to allow access to local residents, buses, and emergency vehicles.

However, the scheme proved highly contentious and was at the centre of a prolonged political controversy in the city fuelled by vocal, and often confrontational, opposition, vandalism, and protests.

A week after the trial began, masked youths ripped out the bollards at the entrance to the LTNs before fleeing on bikes, prompting the police to warn that removing such barriers constitutes a criminal offence and that they were monitoring anti-LTN groups on social media.

A few months later, protesters sent death threats and filled the letterbox of the local MP’s house with faeces, leading to one man being cautioned by police, while a councillor’s bike tyres were also slashed.

A month after an aborted attempt by some council officials to bring the 18-month trial to an immediate and premature halt in January 2024, Lorna Devenish, the spokesperson for the Heavitree and Whipton Liveable Neighbourhood Group, told road.cc that many motorists were simply ignoring the bus gates, often speeding through them, while some signs were sprayed over by vandals.

This situation, Devenish said, led to drivers coming into conflict with the increased number of people walking and cycling in the area thanks to the scheme’s initial promise of quieter, safer streets.

Outside Ladysmith School, located within the boundaries of the Active Streets trial, a child was knocked off their bike by a motorist, while a woman riding a cargo bike with her baby in the back was reversed into by a driver attempting to manoeuvre around the bus gate.

> "Human bollards" step in to enforce road closure after "child knocked off bike" by motorist and cyclist reversed into

These incidents prompted residents supportive of the scheme to act as ‘human bollards’ at the bus gate, leading to often tense stand-offs and angry confrontations between neighbours.

But, after January’s aborted move to scrap the trial, it was eventually abandoned early in June after a recommendation to the Exeter Highways and Traffic Orders Committee (HATOC) that the scheme be “suspended as soon as is practicable”.

An impact assessment carried out by the committee showed that more than 82 per cent of the 24,000 respondents were opposed to parts of the scheme, with just 18 per cent in favour. A report into the trial also claimed that the project had a “disproportionate negative impact” on people with protected characteristics such as disability and age.

However, Exeter Cycling Campaign claimed that the report betrayed the council’s promises to properly back the scheme, arguing the trial met its aims of boosting active travel and reducing car journeys, and arguing that councillors were put in an “invidious” position by their officers’ report.

“It should not require bravery to cycle to school,” the campaign said at the time.

Ladysmith Junior School, Exeter

Fast forward eight months, and it appears that bravery may be exactly what is required for young cyclists to attend Ladysmith School, after the local authority announced that there is no funding available to implement safety measures for active travel in the area.

The report delivered to HATOC, made up of councillors from Devon County Council and Exeter City Council, last week said the focus groups consulted on the failed LTN believed work was needed to “improve safety for children around schools during peak times”.

However, Hannah Clark, transport strategy manager at Devon County Council, told councillors it was not clear “what funding streams might be available”.

Nevertheless, Labour councillor Tracy Adams said she did not want the results of the public consultation to be “lost in aspic” and argued the committee needed to focus on what it could do to improve safety around schools.

“We can’t wait for there to be some horrible accident outside Ladysmith School,” she told the meeting, noting that the discussions with local groups were “heartwarming at the end of a very difficult trial”, and included a number of positive pointers for the future.

“Democracy is important,” Adams added. “People have given their views very clearly, and if we don’t do something about that we have to analyse ourselves as a council and think about what we are doing for our residents.”

Meanwhile, councillors agreed to work with residents of Lower Hill Barton Road on looking at their plans to alleviate traffic in the area around St Nicholas Primary School.

More generally, Cllr Carol Whitton admitted that “the consultation processes were not what they could have been” in relation to the trial.

“We have had to deal with the fallout from that, and we need to restore the community’s faith in the process,” she said.

Meanwhile, Labour’s Su Aves told the meeting that residents “had got back into bad habits since the trial finished”, including cycling on pavements and parking on zig-zag lines outside schools, she said.

Aves noted that councillors would be asking for more enforcement and more fixed penalty tickets to be handed out for law-breaking drivers and cyclists.

Following the meeting, the Exeter Cycling Campaign’s Edward Pickering, a cycling writer and the editor of Rouleur magazine, said he was “underwhelmed and disappointed” by the council’s response.

“It was nice to see feedback from the focus groups, but Exeter still faces the same issues of pollution and congestion, safety, and health that we did a year ago,” Pickering told the BBC.

Meanwhile, Ian Frankum, who campaigned against the LTN, said he was pleased to see “a recognition” from councillors that there were “lessons to be learned” from the engagement process that took place before the LTN was launched.

“It’s clear funding is going to be a big issue going forward and the emphasis has switched to school safety which is something we’d obviously all encourage,” he said.