Local Primary School Introduces 'No Car Friday'
Pollution-busting scheme at St Mary's has prizes for eco-friendly trips to school
Giovanni, a pupil at St Mary's, gets a stamp on his hand that he did
not arrive by car
St Mary's RC Primary School in Chiswick, which has been spearheading an anti-pollution drive with its 'Green Wall' Oasis, has started a campaign to persuade parents and carers to leave cars behind on Fridays when they do the school run.
Every Friday parents will be encouraged to leave their car at home and walk their child/children to school (or use public transports or even ride their bikes). Children will get their hand stamped and get an extra house point. At the same time the parent or carer accompanying the child, will be given a “lottery number”.
Every month a number will be picked and the lucky winner will be given a special prize offered by local businesses. .
The team are still scouting for further support from any of our local businesses. So do get in touch with chiswickoasis@gmail.com with donations ranging from vouchers, free ice-creams, free meals, beauty treatments etc. A local dentist at the Ravenscourt Dental Practice has donated 250 toothbrushes, 250 toothpastes, and electric toothbrushes.
They hope to have a big launch at the end of June to showcase the whole clean air programme.
The team are all set to start installing the green wall during the Easter break (from Monday 15 April). ANS Global is in charge of the installation whilst the whole design has been supervised by ARUP who have been instrumental in the choice of plants and helping with the implementation of it all.
Picture caption: From left to right around the pupils of St Mary’s
primary school: Andrea Carnevali, Head of the Group of parents who has
been leading the creation of the Chiswick Oasis, Matt Coulson, CEO Chiswick
Park Enjoy-Work, Charlotte Fougeres, PR & Community Manager Chiswick
Park Enjoy-Work, Carly Gibbs, Head of Guest Experience, Glen Kitching,
Operations Manager. Chiswick Park have recently come on board to support
the school in its efforts to combat air pollution
‘Chiswick Oasis' was launched in September by a group of parents from St. Mary's and William Hogarth primary schools, which are immediately adjacent to the proposed site of the project at the southern end of Duke Road. The schools' grounds run alongside the A4, a major six-lane road which carries up to 100,000 motor vehicles every day.
Air pollution levels surveys carried out around William Hogarth School and Cavendish Primary, as well as St Mary's found that all three were experiencing high levels of pollution, mainly due to the proximity of busy main roads. In the case of St Mary's approximately 47,300 vehicles per day travel on the core roads within a 200m radius of the school, which the report said was is within the upper quartile for traffic volumes amongst the 50 schools assessed as part of the programme.
April 17, 2019