A FIRST-ever summit has been held for the school run in north-west Glasgow.

School pupils joined with 40 other people for the School Run Summit to look at how to make streets in and around schools safer.

As well as community councils and the city’s road safety team, education department and local councillors, there were also representatives of Glasgow Centre for Population Health, Sustrans Scotland, Living Streets Scotland, Cycling Scotland, Police Scotland and others.

Pupils from St Paul’s, St Brendan’s, Corpus Christi, Clyde, Knightswood, Broomhill, Scotstoun, Hyndland, Hillhead and St Ninian’s primary schools all contributed, many of them junior road safety officers (JRSOs).

Heart of Scotstoun played host to the event, run by charity Dumbarton Road Corridor Environment Trust (DRCET) and De’ils On Wheels.

Primary pupils told delegates about their initiatives, including the JRSO scheme, such as BikeAbility, the zig-zag campaign, the parking pledge, walking buses and park and stride schemes. Bankhead, Corpus Christi and Garscadden – now part of Clyde Primary – were all awarded the Glasgow City Council’s Lord Provost’s Road Safety Award in September.

JRSOs from St Paul’s Primary in Whiteinch said after the summit: “The School Run Summit was a great opportunity for us as JRSOs to think about road safety, particularly during the school run. It was a great day and we learned a lot and it gave us lots of ideas. We now have plans for more action on road safety and the school run at our school.”

Michael Cullen, councillor for Garscadden/Scotstounhill, said the summit was an “excellent example” of working together on a long-standing problem.

He said: “We have all witnessed the impact of the school run in our local community. The children are entirely our future, we don’t want them as adults to be sitting around the table discussing the same problems.”

Neil Lovelock, DRCET project manager said: “Our first School Run Summit has proved to be a huge success. Everyone, including the local primary schools, made a great contribution to the success of the event sharing their knowledge and experience.

“The next step is to set up a small working group to turn these ideas into action to ensure that our young people are able get to school safely and fulfil their potential and become active and healthy citizens.”