A Stannington councillor has suggested joining up with pupils to help them improve road safety outside their school.

Students at Forge Valley School presented in front of the Sheffield city councillors at the North Local Area Committee on the 27 February, where they raised their concerns about the roads around the school.

The Sixth Form students suggested multiple changes that could be implemented to improve road safety to the local council, including a zebra crossing, barriers along the pavement and a ‘Lollypop Lady’.

During the presentation, students revealed the results of a survey that showed 86% of students were concerned that there was no safe crossing outside the school.

Councillor for Stannington, William Sapwell, suggested the students consider taking a petition to the next full council meeting to install a zebra crossing outside the school.

Councillor Sapwell said after the meeting: “The main objective I had in my eyes was, yes you get a zebra crossing outside their school, but equally to provide a really educational opportunity to see how local government works.

“There’s loads of different ways of doing things. I want it to be led by them. I’ll tell them, you want to achieve X, Y, Z, well we achieve that by doing A, B, C.”

The member of staff who supported the group told the meeting that students completed the presentation independently.

Councillor Sapwell exchanged email addresses with the lead member of staff, in order to facilitate further collaboration in the future.

He said: “I’m really excited now, now that we’ve got the official channels to go through to get these guys involved

“If through this new relationship we can get some young people involved in forming policy within the council by presenting a petition then hopefully they can see that their voice actually is important, and I will do my best to make sure that their voice is amplified as much as possible.”