Road Safety and Active Travel to School

Andy MacNae Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd April 2025 Westminster Hall

[Andy MacNae (Rossendale and Darwen) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you, Mrs Hobhouse, and I thank the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover) for securing this very important date, for which we do not have nearly enough time.

I have talked before about Burnley Road in Bacup several times in debates, both here in Westminster Hall and in the main Chamber. There have been serious injuries and fatalities at various points on this main road and speeding is endemic. One house has been hit three times by out-of-control cars. Residents cite numerous close calls and the fear that that generates.

Thorn primary school is set back to the east of the road, with many of its pupils living to the west. If those pupils wish to walk to school, they must cross the busy road at a point where there is no lollipop service, 20 mph zone or zebra crossing. Pupils and parents do not feel safe making the crossing and so drive to school, which in turn leads to congestion, pavement parking and close calls on the roads immediately around the school. Such is the concern that pupils at Thorn have started road safety campaigns calling for action. For instance, William Cartwright, a year 6 pupil, came to one of my surgeries to push the case. He has to cross Burnley Road every day with his two younger brothers and friends. He says:

“Cars travel very fast. We often have to run across the road and I’ve nearly been hit several times.”

He has just started a petition, which already has 350 signatures.

However, when I asked Lancashire County Council to explore options for a crossing point, I was told that historical casualty figures for that particular section of road did not justify an intervention. That sort of response, which dismisses community concerns, flies in the face of common sense. As William says, we should not have to wait for an accident to happen before something is done.

Across Rossendale and Darwen, parents and children are telling us that it is only a matter of time before someone is seriously hurt or killed near our schools. We must do better and listen to our communities. Local authorities should draw on all available data to assess risk, adding in community feedback and lived experience, and actually prevent harm. That, of course, is exactly what happens elsewhere in Europe and in forward-looking authorities in the UK. The Government’s new road safety strategy must ensure that the very best risk-based practices are followed throughout the country. If that happens alongside all the other measures that we will hear about today, we can make active travel, with all the benefits it brings, a genuine option for our schoolchildren.