Ark Swift Families Demand Safer Crossing to School
Council promises to review proposals for South Africa Road
Andy Slaughter MP talks to parents on the street outside Ark Swift
February 27, 2023
Families with children attending Ark Swift Primary School in White City are campaigning for a zebra crossing to be installed on South Africa Road.
They are being backed in their campaign by community organising alliance West London Citizens and by local MP Andy Slaughter.
After visiting the site last month to meet parents and pupils, the MP thanked the parents and children for inviting him to see the traffic problems on South Africa Road and tweeted at @hammersmithandy:
“ Lots of heavy vehicles, speeding and no crossing. Agreed to work on long and short-term solution (while new school being built) to make everyone safe.”
In September this year, Ark Swift Primary will join another existing Shepherd's Bush school, Ark Burlington Danes Primary Academy to create Ark White City Primary Academy, based in a new purpose-built, modern school building currently under construction.
The new school building will have state-of-the-art facilities including a roof terrace with growing gardens for each year group, a space for outside lessons, and a high-quality playground area. It will also have a multi-purpose cooking, DT, science and art room, and a sensory room.
The school is designed with extra-wide learning corridors which can be used as flexible breakout space from the classrooms.
Andy Slaughter meets with parents about the need for a safe crossing
Co-located with the school is an OnSide Youth Zone with facilities which the students will have access to during the school day – including an all-weather pitch, a drama studio, a four-court sports hall with a climbing wall, boxing room, a fully-equipped gym, and multimedia suite including a recording studio.
The Youth Zone, named WEST by local young people, will also offer an array of after-school, weekend and evening activities and opportunities for the local community aged between 8 and 19, including those aged up to 25 with a disability.
The school and Youth Zone will be part of the larger £150 million EdCity development, now being built between South Africa and Australia Roads. It will also offer 132 new homes built around a new public square, a new boulevard. an improved and expanded Harmony Neighbourhood Nursery, an expanded adult education and community learning centre and a new hub for education charities. Find out more about EdCity at https://www.edcity.org.uk/.
In response to the Ark Swift parents' concerns, H&F Council has agreed to review its current plans which are to reinstate an informal crossing point and introduce a speed table to calm traffic, and consider additional short-term measures to further improve safety while the EdCity works are ongoing.
With the support of West London Citizens, the parents are now having monthly meetings with council representatives to discuss the safety proposals.
West London Citizens tweeted a photo of the latest meeting, held on February 21, saying @WLondonCitizens; " All actions are designed to get us around the negotiation table. Here are the #ParentPower White City folks from @ArkSwiftPrimary negotiating with @LBHF
about safer crossings on #SouthAfrica Road.
" Thank you to @hammersmithandy for your support. Improvements are on the way!"
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