June 2025 - Magazine - Page 18
M
embers of the local community have formed a working group, which has
been investigating the viability of new crossing facilities outside of the
school on Brenchley Road. As you will be aware Kent County Council (KCC)
currently provides a school crossing patrol service, operating during the morning
and some afternoon peaks. The community is extremely appreciative of this
service, however many parents have raised concerns regarding crossing Brenchley
Road outside of the operational hours of the service, especially those with pupils
that attend before or after school clubs.
Previous requests for improvements to the crossing facilities have been raised
with KCC. The Parish Council has been working for a number of years with KCC
to improve the safety outside school, through the established KCC Highway
Improvement Plan process and has recently secured approval for an advisory
20mph speed limit while the yellow lights are flashing. However, for larger scale
changes, such as installing a crossing, industry best practice stipulates that a
highway authority (such as KCC) should prioritise locations with the highest
number of recorded killed and seriously injured collisions.
Thankfully the number of collisions at this location is relatively low in comparison
to other sites across the county, but this does unfortunately mean that KCC
has ruled out substantial changes at the location for now. There are also some
physical constraints at the location where families currently cross the road, that
historically KCC has identified as barriers to installing a crossing.
The working group has developed some initial designs for a new zebra crossing,
at a location slightly to the east of the current crossing point. The group hopes
DRAFT PLAN
18
