“The safety of students is in jeopardy every day at some of our busiest schools,” said Council spokesperson Adam Miller. “We need a commitment for real solutions from candidates.

“Council applauds the ACT Greens’ promise to implement school travel and traffic management plans for every school in the ACT. Individual attention on the unique challenges our schools face is crucial to improving safety and efficiencies.

“We also appreciate the Canberra Liberals’ promise to fund flashing lights at all school zones,” Mr Miller continued. “This is a great step which we would like to see all parties commit to, but other measures are also needed to make our school zones safer.

“For example, we would like to see funding for a trial of school-crossing supervisors for schools on busy roads,” he said.

Council calls upon ACT Labor to match these policies to ensure the safety of students in the ACT.

“Schools also need special consideration in ACT’s planning processes,” Mr Miller said. “Over the past few years we have seen schools being adversely affected by changes to local traffic caused by new parking restrictions, changes to public transport, nearby housing developments, land-use changes and so on. In many cases, schools were not consulted and there is often no obligation for them to even be considered.

“We would like to see this change so that schools must be consulted, and the safety of students must be considered, before developments and changes occur,” he said.

Council calls upon the major parties to commit to these improvements.

Released Wednesday September 21, 2016