Bath and North East Somerset is set to see real progress on School Streets, thanks to £250,000 in funding from Clean Air Zone (CAZ) reserves. This long-awaited step will help create safer, healthier streets for children and families walking or cycling to school, reducing congestion and pollution at the school gates.
But concerns are growing over the reliance on volunteer stewards to enforce road closures. While some School Streets schemes across the UK have trialled this approach, evidence suggests it may not be a sustainable long-term solution.
Many councils are now moving away from volunteer-led enforcement. Keeping a School Street running with stewards and temporary barriers demands ongoing community effort, and ‘volunteer fatigue’ often sets in, making it harder to recruit enough people. Worse still, in some areas, volunteers have faced abuse from frustrated drivers, discouraging participation even further.
There’s also a legal issue: volunteers don’t have the authority to stop traffic. They must rely on drivers respecting signs and barriers – and that’s not always a guarantee. The Department for Transport’s latest guidance on School Streets warns that this method may not be appropriate for permanent schemes due to these enforcement challenges.
Cllr Saskia Heijltjes said:
“School Streets that are based on volunteers will be relying on parents and carers to attend from around 8.15am until around 9am, and again at pick up time. This is difficult for parents who need to go to work, or who have caring responsibilities for younger siblings for example. Managing this pool of volunteers requires considerable effort, because the scheme would need to be run 5 days a week, all year round.”
If School Streets are to succeed and expand across Bath and North East Somerset, a more reliable enforcement strategy is needed. Other councils have successfully introduced measures such as Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras, which ensure compliance without depending on volunteers.
The Green Group, which has championed this initiative through budget amendments for the past three annual budget council meetings, welcomes the progress but urges the council to consider the long-term sustainability of the scheme. Safer school streets shouldn’t rely on goodwill alone – they need proper infrastructure and enforcement to ensure their success.