School travel planning

A School Travel Plan (STP) sets out how a school intends to increase levels of walking, cycling and use of public transport for the journey to and from school. It is developed through a partnership involving the school, the Council, TfL and the community, and is based on consultation and engagement with teachers, parents and carers, pupils, governors/boards and other local people.

The STP is developed online using TfL's STARS (Sustainable Travel: Active, Responsible and Safe) platform. STP progress and initiatives for individual Richmond schools can be viewed on the STARS website.

• Current initiatives
• Highway improvements
• Grants and awards

Benefits

A STP gives children, parents/guardians and staff alternatives to using the car every day, which in turn means:

• Improved safety of pupils due to less traffic
• Less congestion around schools
• Less pollution around the school and local area
• Healthier pupils as a result of active travel such as cycling and walking
• Improvements to cycling and walking routes, such as safer places to cross the road
• Improved bike storage at schools through local authority grants and government funding
• Improved road awareness of pupils
• Greater staff health and wellbeing
• Improved journey reliability
• Social responsibility and good neighbourliness

Accreditation

The STARS scheme aims to ensure long term commitment to travel planning in schools. The scheme provides incentives and rewards for those who embrace travel planning and demonstrate achievements in their contribution to sustainable travel.

There are 3 levels of accreditation: Bronze, Silver and Gold, which can be achieved by introducing initiatives and reducing single car occupancy at the school. 

We offer several road safety education programmes and this, coupled with the curriculum initiatives most schools already implement, means Bronze is very achievable for many of our schools.

This year we have increased the number of school’s travel planning with us, but we would love to work with all school in the borough.

Congratulations to the 43 schools and nurseries that submitted and were approved STARS accreditation this year.

Initiatives

Our Transport Planning and Safety Education teams work closely to offer schools a variety of schemes, projects and campaigns that help promote and encourage healthy, safe and active travel to school.

All of the activities are designed to help schools achieve their STP targets and contribute to achieving STARS accreditation. There are over 120 initiatives on the STARS site.

Current initiatives include:

• Walking
• Cycling
• Public transport
• Smarter driving
• Road safety
• Curriculum

Highway improvements

Where hazards exist on walking and cycling routes to school, discussions between the School Travel Champion, School Travel Advisor and stakeholders will determine whether there is a need for further investigation. Schools are encouraged to detail the outcome of this discussion in their STP. Only schools with valid STPs are considered for such works.

Undertaking the works is always subject to funding and includes stages of planning and consultation. Further investigation can result in one of four outcomes:

• Feasibility study required
• Works placed on scheme waiting list
• Works to be scheduled
• Unsuitable for further investigation

In many places a successful travel plan will help resolve the issues.

Darell Primary School

Through their STP, Darell School identified the sightlines at the junction of Darell Road and Chilton Road as an issue for pedestrians walking to and from school. As a result, the junction has been improved by the footways being widened to improve sightlines and reduce crossing distance. The carriageway has also been resurfaced, tactile paving to assist visually impaired people has been introduced and street lighting has been improved.

• View a schematic of Darell Road (pdf, 523 KB)

Eco-Schools

Eco-Schools is an environmental education programme designed to help all schools in Britain become sustainable. To see how you can get involved visit the Eco-Schools website. Having Eco-Schools status counts towards STARS accreditation.

Healthy Schools

Healthy Schools London is another accreditation programme which helps schools deliver projects that will assist in improving pupil and staff health and wellbeing, promoting a healthy lifestyle and aiming to reduce childhood obesity. This can overlap with the STARS programme where active travel is concerned and counts towards STARS accreditation.

Find out more about the Healthy Schools London programme.

Contact

To contact the School Travel Advisor for Richmond, email stp@richmond.gov.uk.