Every day, as we walk our children to school, we face the unnerving reality of busy, unsafe roads. Our community's current road conditions do not provide adequate safe crossing for anyone, but especially for our children. Beach Road in particular is crossed by primary school and nursery children, disabled and elderly members of our community and we think it needs a safe crossing!

We don't think it's right to risk harm from vehicles as we walk, cycle or scoot. We don't think our children should risk their lives crossing unsafe roads to get to school and nursery. 

We want South Tyneside Council to install a safe road crossing on Beach Road (at the junction of Woodbine street, South Woodbine Street, and Sydenham Terrace). There is currently no provision for safe road crossing here. This section of road is a crossing point for families of primary school aged children at Marine Park Primary School and Beacon Primary, as well as families with preschool aged children at multiple nurseries (Beach Hill, Nurserytime Kindergarten) nursing and care homes (the St Thomas Complex, Marine Park View Care Home, Belgrave Terrace) and assisted living residences.

Why do we need a crossing here?

Well, the former crossing patrol ('lollipop lady') at the crossing was hit by a car whilst on duty in 2015 and underwent life-saving surgery in a high-dependency unit. There are currently no road signs to alert drivers to children crossing.

In the last 5 years, between the junctions of Salisbury Place, and the A183 on Beach Road there have been 7 casualties reported in 6 crashes. If we scale out to include the whole of Beach Road, we see that there has also been 1 fatality at the coast end of the road. In 2023, 1,695 people were killed and 28,967 were seriously injured in road accidents (Department for Transport (2024) reported road casualties Great Britain).

Help make it happen!

It is inhumane to wait for lives to be lost before making improvements that are proven to work.

Please sign this petition to ask South Tyneside Council to install a crossing for Beach Road. Please make sure to add your full postcode, thank you.