By Finian Coghlan
A NUMBER of local councillors voiced their disapproval and disappointment in a new Government policy on promoting safe routes to school.
“Forty-five pages on how to walk to school?” asked Cllr Noel Heavey, of the document at a recent meeting of the county council.
“It has no jizz in it and that makes me sad,” he said of the document which has been adopted by Kildare Co Council.
“This is the worst example of local government democracy,” offered Cllr Fiona McLoughlin Healy by Zoom.
Cllr Heavey had proposed that the council “undertake an initiative in each Municipal District before the commencement of the next school year to establish and promote a new sustainable way for pupils to get to and from school”.
In her formal reply to the councillor, the acting Director of Service, Roads Transportation and Public Safety, Celina Barrett, laid out the council’s position in relation to this new national policy.“The Safe Routes to School (SRTS) Programme has been developed by the National Transport Authority (NTA) in partnership with An Taisce’s Green Schools, and details of the programme are published at www.nationaltransport.ie/safe-routes-to-school-srts-programme/,” she revealed.“The council supports this programme and acts as the implementation body for this work which is funded by the Department of Transport, and there are no plans to duplicate the work co-ordinated nationally for this programme,” she declared, much to Cllr Heavey’s disappointment.“I brought this up before, and nothing came of it,” he said.“This should be a bottom-up process, we all walked to school or cycled to […]
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