The Chapter 10th June 2005

The school bike shed, once a common sight at the back of all local schools, has made a comeback up at Ferryhill’s Business and Enterprise College. The new facility is part of a special £40,000 school travel plan completed at the college and along Merrington Lane. The new facilities were celebrated during the “Nation Walk to School” campaign, held before the Whit break.

Both Ferryhill’s Town Mayor, Cllr Julie Bainbridge, and the Borough Mayor, Cllr Jacky Piggott, were at the school to see the scheme implemented. As well as the new bike sheds college has also benefited from the installation of a cycle route from the town, the installation of high visibility signage, an improved road crossing point, marked bus bays and lighting columns erected to the front of the college.

Ferryhill’s two community wardens were also on hand to offer students free bike lights and were kept busy post coding their bicycles. The school travel project aims to reduce car usage for the short journeys to and from school and enable more children to take regular daily exercise by walking or cycling to and from school. The School Travel Planning Team based at County Hall in Durham worked with  Durham County Council, Ferryhill Business & Enterprise College, their students council representatives, teaching staff, parents, police community officers and members of Dean Bank Residents Association to develop the Travel Plan specifically tailored to suit the college.

Funding for the scheme has come from the Department of Transport and Department for Education & Skills as well as Durham County Council’s Local Transport Plan The new facilities also coincided with Sport England’s “Everyday Sport 2005 Campaign” and a group of staff and students used the new travel corridor to walk down to the Dene Bank Primary School to join pupils there in an aerobics exercise in the school yard.

Police bureaucrats, keen to enforce health and safety regulations in the town, have all but scuppered the two annual marches with the Mainsforth and Dean Bank miners’ banners through Ferryhill, prior to enthusiasts taking them up to Durham for the miners’ gala. This week organisers of the two parades, one in Dean Bank and the other in Ferryhill Station, were told that the marches couldn’t go ahead unless organisers closed the road to traffic, bought enough signs for every road junction and took out £millions worth of insurance. The Town’s Banner Committee, who have no income or funds, say they will have to abandon the marches through Ferryhill because they cannot afford to meet the cost of the health and safety regulations. Bitterly disappointed the organisers complain that they have organised the event each year without incident with help from local police.