Active travel competition for Birtley children
Children from five schools around Birtley are competing in an active travel and road safety challenge, with an exciting prize at stake.
The schools - Ravensworth Primary, Portobello Primary, St Joseph's Juniors, Birtley East Community Primary School and Barley Mow Primary - have all committed to reducing the number of families arriving at the school gates by car each day, and increasing how many walk, cycle and scoot, or where parents park away from the school to 'park and stride'.
And now, over two weeks up to the Easter holidays, the schools are competing to see who will register the most active travel journeys on a 'Walk of Fame' log - run in partnership with walking charity Living Streets - and the winning school will win a behind the scenes tour of the Komatsu excavator factory in their town. Second place wins a visit from a fire engine to the children's school.
To launch the fun competition, we visited Komatsu's factory with children from Portobello Primary, as well as our friends from Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service and Living Streets.
Gateshead Council has been working to promote its 'Be cool, park away from our school' campaign for some time now, aiming to reduce unsafe and illegal parking around schools.
The goal is to reduce the number of accidents around schools, and encourage families to feel safe and more able to walk and cycle.
The campaign also shows the danger of parked cars blocking streets and potentially stopping emergency vehicles like fire engines getting through.
Anneliese Hutchinson, service Director for Climate Change, Compliance, Planning and Transport at Gateshead Council, said: "It's fantastic to see children so enthusiastic about active travel, and racking up so many active journeys.
"The Walk of Fame competition is a great way to generate a bit of healthy competition and motivate children and their parents to get active on the school run."
"We're grateful to our partners at Living Streets, Komatsu and Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service for working with us on this project."
Firefighter Tommy Richardson, who works in Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service's Prevention and Education department, said: "Inconsiderate parking around schools can cause significant issues when we are responding to incidents and make it dangerous for our young people when they are crossing the road, two things we don't want to see continue in our region."
"We want parents and carers to think sensibly about how and where they park at school drop off or pick up - is saving a few minutes really worth causing an accident?"
