Road Safety Campaign, Upton Park Rd

Upton Park Rd is a busy, narrow two way street that does not have room for two cars to pass each other without one squeezing into tight spaces and often stopping on the yellow zig-zag lines directly outside the school gates. This is not only a busy road which is used heavily by the local community each day, but it is the location of a large 4 form entry school. Elmhurst Primary School has 985 students aged between 3-11 years. The main pupil, parent and staff entrance to the school is on Upton Park Road. 

This has become increasingly dangerous for pupils and the local community as the road becomes very congested with traffic during school opening and closing times when the number of pupils crossing the road to get into school is at its peak. There is also a road adjacent to the main gates (Stukeley Road) which allows cars to turn left or right on to Upton Park Road, and this creates greater congestion of cars and a further safety hazard. At times the traffic is rerouted, including even buses which come along Stukeley Road into Upton Park Road. In the last two years we have had two serious accidents where pupils and/or their parents have been injured by cars. We have been educating the children and parents on safe road use and we intend to continue to do so.

Upton Park Road is currently one way for half the road and two way for the other part which does cause congestion and some confusion. We strongly believe that making Upton Park Road a completely one-way road will reduce congestion on the road and make it a much safer environment for our children and the local community. Over the past two years we have raised this issue with Newham Council several times informally but no significant action has been taken. 

There is also a lack of signage in the area with just one faded school sign in place half way down the road. In addition to making it one way, we would like to put additional signage in place to warn drivers that they are approaching a school. As well as this, we believe a zebra crossing would benefit the area, allowing the local community to cross the road safely. This could be monitored at school times by a crossing patrol when the number of children crossing is at its greatest.

Thank you for taking the time to read our proposal and we look forward to hearing from you soon.

Kind regards,

Elmhurst Primary School