Healthier air for Leicester schools award

Leicester city schools were encouraged to participate in the Healthier Air for Leicester schools award. The criteria were for activities which supported school awards already and were a great way to engage students, parents, staff and the whole community.

Further information

School run parking

The city council developed the prioritised school run parking programme to address traffic issues around 117 schools in Leicester City. The programme ran until March 2019 and was part of the approved £2.2M Parking Strategy initiative developed in 2016 to implement a range of safety measures around schools to address speeding, congestion, inconsiderate, dangerous and illegal parking.

The improvement measures included both hard and soft measures. The hard measure improvements were proposed on the public highway and typically included the installation of bollards, railings, road markings and signs, dropped crossings, tactile paving and pedestrian refuges. More substantial improvement measures involved highway alignment alterations and the installation of pedestrian crossings, e.g. zebra crossings.

Soft measure improvements were developed in conjunction with the Eco-Schools Award, Sustrans and Living Streets. These soft measures focused on implementing behavioural changes to encourage parents and children to cycle or walk to school. Typical measures included working with the schools to promote pedestrian park and stride sites, walking bus schemes, safe cycle training and cycle maintenance workshops.

Air quality

Poor air quality affects people’s health and damages the environment. In Leicester there are two main pollutants of concern: nitrogen dioxide and  particulate matter. The main source of these pollutants is road traffic, in particular diesel engines.

Leicester has an air quality action plan, a strategic approach to delivering better air quality. This action plan sets out how we will improve air quality and meet the EU standards for nitrogen dioxide, but we cannot achieve this alone.  We are asking you to support tackling air quality by tackling parking around your school and actively encouraging sustainable transport for students, staff and parents.

• Leicester’s air quality action plan

Criteria

In order to achieve a pass in the healthier air in schools award you needed to submit evidence of:

1. Achieving at least your Silver Eco-Schools Award with the topic of transport covered (now green flag)
2. At least 1 ongoing scheme for example Living Streets - Walk to School, Sustrans Schools Cycling - which has lasted at least 2 school terms.
3. At least 1 event involving parents and the community e.g. car-free day, clear air day, raising awareness of the problem of idling. Idling refers to running a vehicle's engine when the vehicle is not in motion i.e. parking outside the school gates.

You can also achieve a merit by evidencing other activities in school – below are some examples

• You can submit evidence of activities which have taken place in the last 12 months.

Examples of other activities can include:

• Bikeability
• Balance bike training
• Road safety officers and/or assemblies
• Park and stride
• Walking bus
• Child pedestrian training
• Investigated air quality around school
• Increasing cycle storage where appropriate
• Encouraging walking on school trips
• Participating in the Big Pedal
• Dr Bike and/or Bike week
• Promoting car sharing to staff and parents
• Using public transport for school trips
• Promoting public transport
• Cycling lessons in PE

Further support

Danni Kennell - Air quality education and healthier air award

• Education Officer (Air Quality)
• Transport Strategy, Leicester City Council
• danielle.kennell@leicester.gov.uk
• Tel: 0116 454 0166

Katie France – Walk to School and student led campaigns

• Project Coordinator (Leicester) Living Streets
• katie.france@livingstreets.org.uk      
• Tel: 07808 640305

Lee Jowett – Eco-Schools Award

• Sustainable Schools Manager, Leicester City Council
• Lee.jowett@leicester.gov.uk
• Tel: 0116 454 2271

Anna Singleton – Sustrans and cycling

• Schools and Neighbourhood Officer, Sustrans
• Anna.singleton@sustrans.org.uk