The current unabated trend towards traffic congestion and gridlock in Waltham Forest asks that council resource attention has to be on safeguarding the road safety for daily school pupil journeys to our schools, especially at peak times of the `school run' between 7.30-9am and 3-4pm on a weekly daily basis.

I share our local parents' concerns that all individual daily pupil journeys are fully registered, so that schools all know the means of public or private transport or local walk of each attending pupil, on their roll : so all `Travel Plan' routes are known and monitored.

In the vicinity of Higham Hill Road/Billet Road in Higham Hill, there are five schools all delivering and picking up over 3,000 daily pupil journeys, during school term.

These schools include Walthamstow Academy,William Morris School,Roger Ascham Primary School,Whittingham Primary School and Hillyfields pre school and Primary School, with two exit points.

The existing traffic patrol/crossing team in Billet Rd/Higham Hill Road do an excellent job in supervising pupils and pedestrians on their daily routes to/from home to school and all are very vigilant to road safety alertness.

But some parents have expressed concern on the apparent absence of any road safety measures at the side entrance of Hillyfields Primary School leading into St Andrew`s Road, where at present there is no school crossing patrol attendant.

There have been numerous community driven road safety campaigns in the past, in Higham Hill, to curb road vehicle speed to confirm more electronic speed-boards and the minimum 20mph where possible, in the locality of all schools.

It remains onerous on the authorities and is the max. consensus on how to deter road accidents and to reassure parents, that all road safety measures possible are constantly reviewed and being seen to be done to make all individual school pupil road journeys and road crossings safer.

All road safety programmes, like the Green Cross Code,`Bikability' and how to use electronic crossings and recognise danger on the road,where organised by the Neighbourhood Police Team families are always welcome by infant/primary schools .

And these classroom focussed events help foster a closer relationship with the protecting police uniform and the school community, in the message alert :that there is a daily menace and danger to children and all pedestrians on all roads.

Patrick C Smith, Liberal Democrat, Higham Hill Focus Team