Over the next few weeks, you’ll start to see more activity around our mini-projects as we deliver an exciting phase of discovery with the community to help deliver ideas and solutions for reducing car use and cutting carbon emissions in and around Chorlton.

Creating A Manifesto For Barlow Hall Primary School

Working with children, parents and teachers at Barlow Hall Primary, Our Streets Chorlton with specialist support from Sustrans – the charity making it easier to walk and cycle – are running  several workshop sessions  and activities to create an active travel school manifesto with the pupils.

Sustrans will also help create some co-designed visions to inspire what  could be possible outside the school gates and will be part of the Our Streets Chorlton team trialing a two-day school street closure this June to find out what could work longer term and start the conversation with the wider school community.

Jess Hawthorne, one of the project team at Sustrans has helpfully shared the details of the first session run with the pupils:

On Thursday morning, the 13th of May, students at Barlow Hall Primary School completed the first session of the Big Street Survey with the help of Henry and Jess from Sustrans.

The Big Street Survey lets the pupils take charge , so they can tell us about their world from their perspective and identify the changes that make it better for everyone.

Pupils from the school started by drawing what they see on their way into school and decided how different parts of their journey make them feel.

Then they grabbed their coats and headed out of the classroom to investigate the streets around the school.

Photos were taken at each of the streets they visited and the pupils counted car, pedestrian and bike/scooter traffic at each place, using descriptive words and grading scales to capture how each street feels.

All of these scores are going to be used in a second Big Street Survey Session in the coming weeks to ultimately create a manifesto on how to improve the streets around the school and make their journeys happier and more fun.

Soon, Our Streets Chorlton should be able to get a better understanding of what the pupils see as the challenges and solutions to issues at the school gates and have a snapshot of what would encourage active travel journeys through this work.

This will also support the ongoing survey work with the parents and guardians about their journeys to and from school and the developing School Champions Network, facilitated by OSC and very much led by the parents and teachers involved.