Solved!

“Sometimes things don’t go, after all, from bad to worse.”* After our downer on car-spreading and challenges to get the local school street in place, it was a joy to spend a relaxed morning outside school remembering why this matters so much for kids and families.

Thanks to our friends at Solve the School Run, we organised a Show and Tell last week to demonstrate to local council candidates (for the election on 7 May) the dangers our children face. We are happy to say that all leading parties are committed to implementing the school street. It was covered in the Brixton Buzz!

We were also super-proud parents, as our daughter (indoctrinated in arguments about clean air) did a piece to camera to rival the politicians! This should be coming out in a social media video soon - we will share it. Many other children shared their experiences of the busy road and how they love seeing friends as they took active travel routes to school.

So how to build on this? For our local school, we are looking at how to make the road outside the school the nicest possible environment - with planters, seats and maybe even some art work. There is also a much wider conversation to be had with the school about the environment within the school plot - effective greening for playgrounds (sometimes easier said than done) and improved indoor environments (new guidance came out a few months ago).

And then the remainder of schools in Lambeth and beyond. Many local parents are really concerned about the reversals and challenges to plans for the cycle lane extension and extra zebra crossings near to Rosendale School. If you are local, there is a rally tomorrow (Friday 24 April) at 8.30am at the Wigwam Toy Shop SE21 8EZ.

For those wondering why no local air quality data in this blog for a while… We are still waiting for the Council to work out who is allowed to go up a ladder to replace our Breathe London monitoring node on the now famous lamp-post in Brixton. Soon, we hope!

*From Sometimes by Sheenagh Pugh. The next line is: “Some years, muscadel faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don’t fail.”