St Paul’s Primary School 

• REDUCING traffic around St Paul’s Primary School – how could Camden Council get this so wrong?

St Paul’s School is on the corner of Elsworthy Road and Primrose Hill. Camden’s proposed traffic ban on a short section of Elsworthy Road between 8am and 9am and 3pm and 4pm completely fails to take into account that 180 of 220 pupils enter and leave school via the playground on Primrose Hill Road.

The reason the children do not enter or leave through the main door of the school is because there is insufficient space for that number of pupils to do so.

In addition coming and going via the playground means that 150 of the 180 enter directly into their classrooms.

As this is a primary school, from four to 11, children are brought to school and then collected and so there needs to be sufficient space for the adults and younger siblings to wait safely too.

Closing Elsworthy Road to traffic during these times will only mean that delivery drivers to school (including all food deliveries) and teachers will be unable to access the small school car park on Elsworthy Road.

The wider proposals in the scheme, mainly preventing cars from cutting along Elsworthy or King Henry’s roads, will result in more standstill-traffic chugging up the hill all along the playground entrance on Primrose Hill Road towards the traffic lights at the junction with Adelaide Road.

There will be an increase in the levels of pollution the children and their families are exposed to at drop-off and pick-up, as well as higher pollution during playtime and PE lessons.

Approximately 90 per cent of the 160 families currently at the school walk, as families live locally to this state primary. This is perhaps in stark contrast to other schools in the area.

Finally, the scheme suggests widening the pavement in front of the playground entrance. This would result in forcing every car to steer away from the children and families that would be in the car’s path.

Once again pollution levels would be increased yet further by creating a bottleneck on this congested road.

If anyone from Camden Council is reading this, we parents would be so grateful if you would please contact our lovely school and work out how to reduce the significant levels of pollution around our school.

LARA MAX
St Paul’s Parent, NW3