CERTIFICATE 18

A couple of weeks ago a colleague of mine asked me if I wanted a DVD filmed of the Metro parking congestion as it built up through out the day around the village of East Boldon. Secretly thinking it was hardly the stuff of a Tom Cruise film, I said OK. However, the results were marvellous. Filmed over a few hours and speeded up, the footage shows a quite village slowly transformed into a commuter cark park. There was however, a disturbing element half way through the film. For some time residents have been concerned about the dangers of two school buses collecting and dropping children off in the vicinity of the Station approach. Due to cars banked up on pavements and general congestion, the buses often have to disembark and collect from the middle of the road, hardly a safe practise but in some ways not the fault of the drivers. The DVD shows such a scenario, with a child clearly shown nearly being knocked over by a passing car. The scene still brings a lump to my throat.

About eight weeks ago and before we had this footage, I wrote to the Education Department at South Tyneside Council outlining my concerns and asking that they look at the safety issues concerning this area. They did not reply. When the video came into my possession I again wrote to them, and gave them a choice;

1. Would they like to see the video?
2. Would they like to at least acknowledge our concerns?
3. Or would they like me to release the video to the press with information that they had completely ignored our concerns.

To date, I have received no reply to any of the correspondence. Copies of the footage are winging their way to all the regional papers (stills can be taken) and also to the regional news programmes. (The footage is also going to be placed on You Tube and I will post the link later).

The simple solution would be to place yellow lines on the approach to the crossing, stopping commuters abandoning their cars for whole days and freeing up the area for the movement of traffic. Requests to the Council by residents along these lines have been completely ignored, and now through the disgraceful attitude of the Education Department, they have shown they wont even protect the community’s children.

What type of council ignores the well being of its youngest and most vulnerable population? The answer, our Council.