The London Road Safety Council (LRSC) is to be awarded funding by the Road Safety Trust (RST) to carry out a project that aims to reinvigorate road safety education in London.
The LRSC, which celebrated its centenary in 2017, exists to provide support and facilitate collective activity by all 33 London local authority road safety units.
Over the past seven years the LRSC has become concerned about the reduction in the number of staff engaged in road safety education, training and publicity (ETP) work, and sees a corresponding slow-down in the overall reduction in road casualties across London.
The RST funding will be used scope out the extent of the challenges faced by London’s road safety professionals, with a view to developing an actin plan to help address the situation.
Cllr Wendy Brice Thompson, chair of the LRSC, said: “The LRSC is made up of officers and elected members from all London authorities and like so many public services, we see that budget cuts are resulting in a reduced service.
“The time has come to draw attention to the impact this is having on road safety, and by engaging key officers and elected members in discussions about their problems and aspirations, we hope to come up with an action plan.
“It may be that the best effort we can make for our constituent members is to campaign for a change in the statutory legislation that governs road safety education, or it could be that they see more scope for joint working.
“Our belief is that by having frank and earnest discussions with each borough, we can take forward their ideas and examples of innovation and good practice that will, through sharing, bring benefits to all road safety practitioners and the wider road safety movement.
“Our Council meetings focus on the sharing of new ideas and initiatives that can inspire our members to follow up within their own boroughs. This project gives us an unprecedented opportunity to encourage deep thinking on the future provision and we look forward to successful outcomes.”
The interviews will be conducted during the early part of 2018 and key findings and innovative ideas will be shared at a conference to be held in July, at Palestra, the headquarters of Transport for London.