£500,000 roads safety drive

ALMOST £500,000 will be ploughed into educating people on road safety in five areas across the borough with worrying levels of accidents, Government said.

Oldham was one of eight areas listed today as receiving cash to tackle road safety problems in their areas using new techniques which will then be shared with other councils.

Up to £480,000 of match funding will be available for the Unity Partnership — on behalf of the council — for road safety education targeted towards adults in five areas across Oldham with concentrations of road casualties, to help them to pass key messages on to children and so reinforce road safety education in schools.

Roads safety minister Jim Fitzpatrick said: “Britain has some of the safest roads in the world and in 2007 the number of people killed on the roads fell below 3,000 for the first time since records began in 1926.

“But if we are to continue to cut this terrible toll we need to find innovative ways to tackle the road safety problems we face.

“This extra funding will support local authorities using the latest techniques, which in turn will help to spread good practice around the country and make our roads safer for everyone.”

The money is in addition to the £110m given to local authorities each year to spend on road safety and local transport capital funding support of about £1.3bn per year.