Whole of community benefits

Whole of community benefits

Dunedin City Council launched school travel planning in Term One this year when a cluster of enthusiastic schools and kindergartens in North-East Valley began the travel planning process.

School travel plans normally engage the school community by identifying road safety issues and looking at how these might be addressed using a series of tools. These tools include: education, enforcement, engineering and encouragement strategies. The whole school approach enables students and their families to make safe and sustainable travel choices on their journey to and from school.

The North-East Valley cluster differs in that the travel plan involves the whole community and will bring benefits to a number of organisations located along North Road.

These organisations include Ross Home, Hospital and Cottages, the Otago Community Hospice, kindergartens and, of course, the participating schools: Sacred Heart School, Dunedin North Intermediate and North East Valley Normal. The principals of these three schools as well as the heads of the three kindergartens joined together in 2008 to form an Education Council as part of the North East Valley Project.

This Education Council is working to ensure that children are given access to all benefits as they travel from kindergarten through to middle school within the valley community.

The Education Council embraced school travel planning as a Valley-wide project given the numerous benefits it would have within the community. These benefits include:

• reduced congestion outside the school gates;
• more active and healthier children,
• a safer community;
• stronger networks within the community as children get to know their neighbours and make friends on the way to school.

The Dunedin City Council looks forward to developing school travel planning with the enthusiastic North East Valley Education Council during the next year. The council, schools and kindergartens will be working on a series of surveys in Term Two and developing the Mapping for Real map for each school at the end of Term Two and into Term Three. This will be followed by the launch of the individual travel plans in Term Four.

Further information: cflahert@dcc.govt.nz, .