Year 5 Arundel Kids Write To MP, National Highways With Bypass Objections

Pupils in year 5 at Walberton and Binsted CE Primary School, which will be directly affected by the 'grey route' Arundel Bypass plans, have written to their MP and National Highways to object.

During a class about their school project The Circle of Life, pupils asked their teacher, Karen Becker, what effect the new road would have on wildlife around the school.

She said she realised that their concerns would be a 'golden opportunity to extend their persuasive writing' techniques, so she organised for the children to carry out a survey of local traffic, noting down the number of cars currently using The Street on which their school is located.

Pupils recorded 270 vehicles per hour using the road, then looked at the numbers provided in National Highways' consultation document.

In it they had predicted a 42% rise in traffic over a 24-hour period. However, the pupils' data had found that was 2722 vehicles, which was more than double the 1,300 vehicles National Highways had predicted.

They wrote persuasive letters to National Highways and sent copies of their letters to West Sussex County Council, Chichester District Council, the Government, and the MP for Arundel.

Ms Becker told us that the school was awarded the Green Flag Award for Eco Schools in May 2021 "but the plans for the road make a mockery of this award as they place the school approximately 150m from the new bypass. The impact will be devastating from traffic noise and air pollution, as well as the dangerous increase in vehicles travelling along the narrow Street that pupils use daily putting them at real risk as they try to walk to school along a road that in places has no pavement".

The children have asked that National Highways "rethink the Grey Route, consider alternatives away from their school and seriously reflect on conservation and the climate. Their generation will suffer the consequences of the irreversible damage being planned by NH".

Teacher Karen Becker said:

“All children have pushed for the letters even the reluctant writers have worked hard to put their views across. The children who have been very animated about this important subject even completed letters when they have been at home with Covid!”

Headteacher, Mrs Brockhurst, said:

“This has a huge potential impact on our pupils’ health and wellbeing as they frequently engage in outside learning opportunities in our playground, field and wonderful environmental area. Having recently achieved our Gold Flag Award for Eco Schools, our efforts to listen to our pupils on how they want to shape both their future and their school environment have been seriously knocked.”

Cara, aged 9, said:

“I am against this proposed bypass because it will destroy animal habitats, increase air pollution and this will subsequently become a health hazard for the children at Walberton and Binsted School. In the NH brochure (Pages 14 and 18) the map, where our school is situated, was covered by white boxes, very conveniently, so that any reader would not know that there was a school nearby! We found out through our traffic survey that the increase will not be the 1,300 more vehicles that they stated in their brochure on pages 36-37, this is actually only a 20% increase using our figures. I hope they think very carefully before going ahead with this project.”