Children's Traffic Club comes to Stoke

Following a successful bid bid for almost £1m funding from the DfT's Neighbourhood Road Safety Initiative (NRSI), Stoke City Council is taking forward a variety of road safety projects, including the Children's Traffic Club.

The Children's Traffic Club evolved from a Scandinavian concept developed in the 70s and 80s, and centres around six books covering the main road safety issues that children need to learn. The books are designed to be used by the child's carer or parent to make them aware of issues in a fun and informative way.

The Club was launched at the Sure Start pre school centre in Shelton, and is a partnership between the City Council, the Health Service and Sure Start.

"The Child Health Team sends out application packs to every child in the city who has just celebrated their third birthday, and we hope that everybody will register with the Club," explains Karen Gordon from North Staffordshire Health Informatics.

The Sure Start pre-school group was only too pleased to become involved with the launch - as part of its curriculum, children have been engaged in various road safety activities. The children's work was displayed at the launch and they demonstrated their understanding of road safety on the staged road set, which included scale size zebra and pelican crossings and other road safety resources.

"We have wanted to set up the Children's Traffic Club in the City for some time and the funding has made this possible," said road safety officer, Angela Wyatt. "We feel it provides an effective means to deliver road safety education to pre-school children. It is when they are young that they can best be influenced - good habits established early can last a lifetime."

The NRSI funding ensures that the Children's Traffic Club will be provided free to residents of Stoke-on-Trent until March 2006.

For further information contact Chris Collins, chris.collins@civic2.stoke.gov.uk.