Another accident on the ‘safe’ walking route at Tarbet as Arrochar parents attract Herald coverage

The national daily newspaper, The Herald, yesterday carried a substantial article on the campaign by parents of primary school children in Arrochar to:

• supply the full report that classified the dangerous section  of the A83 trunk road that the village tinies must now walk to school
• conduct an independent survey of the route
• restore the free school  bus service whose withdrawal now leaves the tinies vulnerable to fear and potential injury

Jackie Baillie, the MSP for the area and who has been supporting the parent, is quoted by The Herald as drawing attention to the fact that the Council has classed this road as safe when they do not even allow a school crossing patrol on it because of safety risks’.

Alan Reid, MP for Argyll and Bute, has also been supportive of the parents case. Back in May he wrote to the responsible Council manager, Malcolm MacFadyen, Head of Facility Services (MacFadyen-school transport Arrochar), detailing the dangers of the proposed route.

Mr Reid has also advised one of the parents on the Council’s formal complaints procedure which, if followed, leads to the Ombudsman – slowly, of course.

We understand that the parent concerned, Colin Graham, has now taken his complaint to Stage 2 in this process, has had this confirmed and been informed that Mr MacFadyen :’will  now, in line with council procedure, carry out a further investigation into the process which was followed’.

Ironically, the Council document on its own complaints procedure is headed boldly: ‘Tell us when something has gone wrong so that we can put it right’. What it doesn’t say is how many people have to tell them before they put it right. Or have they a hearing problem?

The issue has been throughly aired in a series of articles we have published – logging and displaying photographic evidence of the manifest dangers of this route and detailing the situation, the risks, the questions and the parents determined campaign.

The key issue is that the parents are not asking the Council to abandon its new policy of withdrawing all free bus services to children who live within a two mile radius from their schools.

The Arrochar tinies live very marginally within that limit and are faced with a genuinely dangerous route to walk to school – in all weathers and conditions.

The parents are simply asking the Council to exercise, in their case, the local flexibilty the Scottish Government’s guidelines allow in restoring the free bus service.

The cost of paying for a seat on the bus – even if they could be assured of getting it and even if such decisions could be speedily arrived at, is beyond many of the parents, some with several children at the school. This village and these parents may be resourceful and resolute but they are not wealthy.

The latest proof of ever-present danger

Further evidence of the dangers on this section of the A83 was graphically displayed (photograph above) this Saturday (28th August 2010), with another road traffic accident at the same corner on the exit from Tarbet as the A83 turns for Arrochar. It is only days since we reported and showed photographs of another accident at the very same spot.

Of course, once an accident has happened and the police are present, traffic is under control and, even if intimidated, children can largely be kept safe.

But it is in the moment of the accident occurring that the sharp danger exists – and that is utterly unpredictable.

Other vehicles swerve instinctively to avoid contact and can – may have to – mount the footpath with no awareness in that moment that the footpath may be occupied by small children and mother’s with push chairs.

In the case of Saturday’s accident, quite a large vehicle has rolled on its side and is lying well across the centreline  occupying half of the southbound lane. Traffic heading south for Glasgow as this happened would certainly have had to swerve left, mounting the kerb on that side of the road.

Stop digging

In continually parrotting the mantra  – as a representative did yet again to The Herald – that this walking route ‘has been assessed as safe using guidelines set out by the West of Scotland Road Safety Forum’, the Council is simply shredding its own credibility and trustworthiness.

Despite repeated requests, some, like our own, under Freedom of Information legislation, the Council has failed to provide anyone – even its own Provost – with the full assessment report.

This inevitably raises the reasonable suspicion that a full report was never prepared. Should one emerge later, it will be met with derision.

• If a full report exists, it should be produced now, regardless of how embarassingly inept it may be.
• If it does not exist and therefore can never be produced, Council officers will be seen to have taken life-threatening decisions impacting on young children on an inadequate basis.
• And in this instance, elected Councillors will be seen to have approved officers’ recommendations on a serious issue without satisfying themselves as to the validity of the basis for the recommendations.

The Arrochar parents, through spokesperson Tracey Milton, were unequivocal with The Herald.

If the Council does not agree to an independent safety assessment of the route or put safety measures in place, the parents will press for a Judicial Review to test the validity of the decision. They are already taking legal advice on this matter.

To an objective observer, the Council seems to be unable to read the reality of this particular situation.

The route is not safe. If the boxes ticked in an ‘assessment’ – conducted over a week when major traffic was diverted away from the relevant section of the A83 – added up to a classification of ‘safe’, it does not mean that the road is safe. It means that there is something very wrong with the criteria.

The one sure thing, given the risks of this road,  is that there will be a regular stream of photographs like the one above, illustrating powerfully just what those risks are.

And the Arrochar parents have the bit well between their set jaws. They are not going away.

So – to the Council: ‘When you’re in a hole, stop digging. Apply the local flexibility this case so patently demands – and do so before your reputation suffers yet more collateral damage or – the nightmare scenario – a child is injured’.