Well, the first few days of the new school opening in Alvechurch were rather exciting, not only for the pupils and parents alike, but for the traffic and the parking arrangements.
People just didn’t know where to go, or indeed who to give way to round the traffic island at the Red Lion.
I must say I had to hold my breath a couple of times walking up the new widened pavement as the children were overtaking mums with pushchairs by running into the road, unaware of the danger of the main road, as there is no defined kerb now on the dropped pavement.
On the third day came the builders, who decided it was best to park their two big vans half on and half off the pavement thus narrowing it to single file (not realising it is illegal to park on a dropped kerb), so they were soon asked to move by the community support officer and this was resolved for the following day.
I do think it is a great shame that when planning the school entrance, more thought was not given to the dropping off situation. As parking and drop-off is not allowed inside the school entrance area for safety reasons, nor along the service road out of courtesy to the residents, and you are not allowed to stop along the main road, provision should have been made for more parking/drop-off points.
Although the green area in front of the new library is nice, surely more parking bays would have been of better use especially as the coach appears not to have enough room to turn and has already driven all over it?
One main controlled crossing could have been put outside the pupils’ entrance where the cycle dismount point is, meaning fewer children crossing across the main school and library entrance and no need for the other traffic lights at the traffic island by the Red Lion.
On another traffic issue, I have to say that as I look out of my office window every day I am frightened by the speed at which traffic still comes through the village.
The traffic calming zones may have slowed things down entering the village but we still desperately need some calming humps through the middle, especially when you see the number of people and children running across the road as they come out of Bear Hill Drive, and the cars coming from the Red Lion have drummed up a good old speed by the time they reach there.
A few along the main road by the school would slow things down too. I think we still have a bit of spending to do here, councillors.
Penny Walker, Alvechurch