Calls to improve road safety near Eastbourne schools not supported

Calls to improve road safety for Eastbourne schoolchildren have failed to win the support of a senior councillor, but could yet see success through a community-funded process.

On Monday (October 24), Cllr Claire Dowling, East Sussex County Council’s lead member for transport and environment, considered a pair of petitions seeking pedestrian improvements near both Cavendish School and Gildredge House School.

The petitions — submitted separately — had asked the council to put in place a new pedestrian crossing in Eldon Road (directly outside of Cavendish School) and to find some way to improve the safety of Gildredge House students in Compton Place Road.

Acting on officers’ advice (and after hearing from both sets of petitioners), Cllr Dowling concluded that neither request should move ahead at this time. This was because neither project had met the council’s High Level Sift criteria — a process which seeks to prioritise funding to road works likely to have the greatest impact on reducing deaths and injury.

This assessment was disputed by local resident Katherine Bruce, who spoke on behalf of the Compton Place Road petitioners. She said: “We do understand that budgets are tight and we understand that there are priorities it completely makes sense. [But] we have always failed at this High Level Sift and never made it to the threshold.

“We really think the threshold is just too high, when it is a school road, because kids don’t manoeuvre or think in the same way adults do.”

While Cllr Dowling ultimately declined the petitioners’ requests, she did say the projects could potentially secure funding through the council’s community match scheme. This scheme can see non-priority projects receive funding as long as a local group (usually a parish council) stumps up half the money for it.

Any applications to this funding would first require both a feasibility and a speed study, costing £500 and £450 respectively. Officers had suggested the petitioners approach Eastbourne Borough Council to pay for these studies.

But Liberal Democrat Pat Rodohan said: “The responsibility for highways — all aspects of it — is with the county council. The borough council has no remit for highways.”

In response, Cllr Dowling said the funding did not necessarily have to come from the borough council but could be raised by any community group.