The identified schools had produced a wish list of road safety improvements they wanted to see delivered. Ethos were required to assess the wish list for each school to determine the deliverability within the scope of the available budget.
Our design team needed to produce consultation drawings for each scheme to allow a public consultation exercise to be held. Detailed designs were also needed to allow the councils contractor to deliver the works. To support the drawings it was necessary to produce Bill of Quantities, and supplementary schedules for the infrastructure requirements.
We were also required to prepare Traffic Regulation Orders for schemes that included speed limit changes, parking restrictions, and traffic calming measures.
The first stage was to review the wish list provided by each of the eight schools. This varied from school to school but generally focused on road safety, active travel, and parking improvements outside the school, and the surrounding area that would be subject to most footfall. During the assessment we informally calculated costs to determine if there was sufficient budget, and considered whether proposals could be delivered if there was enough funding available.
A site visit was undertaken across each school, which was tied into either the morning drop-off or afternoon pick-up to monitor pedestrian, cyclist, and traffic behaviour. Detailed measurements were undertaken such as road widths to inform the design process.
Our multi- disciplinary design team produced a series of consultation drawings and visualisations to allow us to engage with each school and local residents that would be impacted. Support for the proposals was universally high across all eight sites. This enabled us to develop detailed designs that provided enough information for the councils highway contractor to implement the schemes.
Our scheme designs included a mixture of engineering measures such as speed tables, priority give-ways, and controlled pedestrian crossings, speed limit reductions including both 20mph speed limits, and 20mph zones supplemented with traffic calming, signage including Vehicle Activated Signs, and parking controls to improve visibility.
Bill of Quantities was prepared for each scheme to ensure there was sufficient funding in place, and to allow the council to gain approval to deliver the schemes through their committee process. Schemes ranged from £50,000 at the smallest site, through to £250,000 at the largest site.
Supporting the design was a full TRO package, which included a drafted order, Statement of Reasons, schedules, plans, and site notices that would be erected within the extents of the scheme. This process was required for all eight schools.
The council received approval to implement the schemes, which have now been delivered. Post scheme feedback has demonstrated a series of positive outcomes including a reduction in traffic during the school drop-off and pick-up, a reduction in traffic speed at all times along the streets nearest the schools, and an increase in pedestrians walking to school.
