Lanark children campaign for lollipop patrollers

There has been a growing backlash amongst both parents and kids at the total removal of the patrols covering streets on the approaches to both St Mary's and Lanark Primary Schools.

That unrest has grown due to the fact there are THREE lollipop patrollers assigned to cover the single road crossing for Grammar pupils at the Braidfute Roundabout.

At St Mary's it is the pupils themselves who have taken up the cudgels to get their former Smyllum Road lollipop man Graham Cockrell back.

The youngsters have even been creating their own campaign posters, which they presented to local List MSP Aileen Campbell to pass on to the roads authority, South Lanarkshire Council.

Said one St Mary's mum, Senga Dickie: "The kids are really, really missing their patrol man. They are really frightened about crossing that road without him and they want him back."

The Gazette has also been contacted by several Lanark Primary School parents, pointing to what one of them termed "the utterly ridiculous situation" of the re-assignment of the female lollipop patroller who used to cover the busy Cleghorn Road/Braedale Road junction.

However, a council spokesman defended the authority's decision.

He said: "The council often has to turn down requests for patrollers at new locations that fail to meet 100 per cent of the criteria.

"It is simply not fair to provide patrollers at locations with much less justification, as is the case at Cleghorn Road and Smylum Road where only 16 per cent and 24 per cent of the criteria was met respectively."

For more on this story, pick up a copy of this week's Lanark Gazette which is in the shops now, priced just 48p.