Promoting road safety

Pupils from Deeplish Primary Academy – Marium Yousaf (Year 6) and Hasan Ahmed (Year 2) with the road safety dolls house.

Over the 12 months from October 2014 there were 278 road accidents in the borough resulting in 424 casualties, including six deaths.

Local figures also show the Milkstone and Deeplish area as a hotspot for road casualties involving children, some as young as one, with 27 casualties recorded over the past five years.

During Road Safety Week Rochdale Borough Council’s public health and casualty reduction teams worked with Deeplish Primary Academy to promote road safety messages.

Pupils from the school wrote road safety poems, which they performed to children and parents at the Bookstart Bear Club, Number One Riverside and on Crescent Radio.

Laura Campbell-Starling, Vice Principal at Deeplish Primary Academy, said: “We have welcomed the opportunity for our children to share their knowledge of road safety with the wider community.

"The safety of children is our top priority and writing poems has been a fun way for the children to learn about keeping safe on the roads and at the same time, spread that message with friends and family.”

As part of the week the council has been teaching children how to cross roads safely and plan their journeys using a doll’s house with roads, in the children’s library, Number One Riverside. New lamppost banners are also being displayed in Milkstone and Deeplish to remind residents to stay safe near roads.

Councillor Jacqueline Beswick, Cabinet Member for Housing and Environment, said: “Keeping everyone safe on our roads is so important and we take it very seriously.

"The creative poems the children from Deeplish Primary Academy wrote were fantastic and I would like to thank them for helping us to promote crucial messages, like using pedestrian crossings and holding hands with a responsible adult, to our local children and parents.

"These road safety skills will be used throughout people’s lives and will be passed down from generation to generation, so it is key that we teach our children from a young age to ensure that we can be a safe borough for years to come.”