Mary Reid

At the beginning of the month I met with the School Council at Lovelace Primary School, and I asked them to send me their ideas for improving the area.  This is what they wrote to me in an email:

Dear Madam Mayor,

Thank you for visiting our school. In our school council meetings with our classes, we discussed what we could change about Chessington. Here are a few of our ideas:

• More dog litter bins because there is too much dog mess about.

• Local playgrounds have had equipment removed and not been replaced.

• Information map of Chessington by Hook Parade shops or outside the new library.

• There is glass smashed and chewing gum on the pavements. Could we have more street cleaning?

• A graffiti park where you could graffiti instead of doing it on peoples fences.

• There is not much room at our roundabout, it gets very busy and we need more yellow lines.

• There are mini motorbikes being driven on the road. Could we have a park where you are allowed to ride them?

• More bins to be put around because there is too much litter on the floor.

• More community police men around to help with parking issues outside Budgens, talking to cyclists who don't stop at traffic lights, checking shops don't sell alcohol to people under age.

Thank you for reading our e-mail, we hope you can do something about our issues.  

From

I thought this was a very sensible and useful list of suggestions, so I thanked them and forwarded their requests to several people. 

The Neighbourhood Service Manager, Barry Allen, replied immediately and positively to the children. He is going to meet the School Council soon to discuss some of the issues, especially the type of replacement play equipment that they would like. He has also told them whom to contact to report street cleaning problems. And he has asked the dog warden to check the area near the school.

The Neighbourhood Traffic Manager is looking again at the yellow lining in the turning circle ('roundabout') by the school entrance.

Then Sgt James Ellis of the Safer Neighbourhoods team has also responded to the children, explaining about their local policing and offering to come and meet the School Council.

As I keep on saying - children are citizens now, not just future citizens. They experience the environment in different ways to adults and their concerns should be listened to carefully.

I'm really pleased with the way that the professionals have responded to the children, have taken them seriously and are doing something about the matters they raised.

I've invited the children to visit the Guildhall next term, when they can see where Kingston's Council meets and can give me some feedback on their campaigns.

I've met a number of School Councils this term, and am only to happy to meet others across the Borough, to answer their questions and to get them thinking about how they can improve things in their locality.