A PETITION has been launched to keep a children’s road safety scheme running.
Kerbcraft is a 12 week programme for five to seven-year-olds currently running in 31 primary schools in Wrexham.
But due to a 21 per cent cut in Welsh Government funding there are fears the service may be radically cut or lost at some schools.
Now Cllr Teri Birch, who is also a mother, has raised a petition calling on Wrexham Council to find the funding from elsewhere.
A council spokesman said it was exploring other options.
Cllr Birch said: “My daughter is five. I teach her what I can about road safety but they can do more and the children are more likely to listen to them at school. The children need this.”
Cllr Birch, a community councillor in Smithfield and Hermitage, said her daughter, who goes to Ysgol Bodhyfryd on Brynycabanau Road, had just started school.
“I’m worried she won’t get chance to do it because of the cuts,” she said. “If funding is being cut at Welsh Assembly level then we need to find the funding elsewhere.”
The petition – “Protect our children and save kerbcraft” – is online at www.ipetitions. com.
Smithfield councillor Keith Gregory, Ms Birch’s partner, added: “You can’t mess about with children’s safety.
“There have been no serious accidents while we have been running it.”
He said he was writing to all Wrexham community councils to make them aware of the situation.
A Wrexham Council spokesman said: “In light of the anticipated cut in funding from the Welsh Government, Wrexham Council is currently exploring other options in an attempt to ensure this much valued service can continue.”
The money is administrated on behalf of the Welsh Government by Taith.
Taith officer Iwan Prys Jones said: “The money Taith provides is over and above what the council gets to provide road safety.
“We provide a sum of money to enable each local authority to deliver in that area.”
He said the money was intended to fund “intervention” schemes in areas where there were specific problems and high road casualties.
Thankfully, he said, road safety for children was not a serious problem in the region, unlike the high amount of casualties among young drivers and motorcyclists.
“But we recognise Kerbcraft is important as an underpinning of road safety for the whole of people’s lives,” he said, “which is why we have tried to safeguard the Kerbcraft budget as much as possible. There has been a lower level of reduction in it than some of the other services we deliver.”
He said it was up to Wrexham Council how it used that money to provide the service once it had it.