GRID-LOCKED roads during school term time are testament to the amount of traffic created by parents driving their children to school in Bucks. The results of a survey carried out by Brunel University showed that an astonishing 40 per cent of children are taken to school by car in Bucks, compared to 29 per cent nationally.

Margaret Smith investigates the problem to see what action is being taken to encourage parents to let their children walk.

Although schoolchildren would rather walk to school in Buckinghamshire most of them will pop into their parents cars every morning and get dropped off at the school gates.

This is the picture painted by research carried out by Brunel University, which involved talking to children aged between four and 11 at school in Wycombe and South Bucks.

Its findings that most children would like to walk, were welcomed by the Buckinghamshire County Council's schools' cabinet member Marion Clayton, who said the LEA had been working for years on schemes to get parents to encourage their children to walk.

But she said many parents thought walking was unsafe because there was so much traffic about, while others took children to school on their way to work. But whatever the reason, much of the congestion parents thought of as dangerous was caused by parents' cars themselves.

The research showed that children liked to walk to school because they could talk to their friends as they went along. Mrs Clayton agreed. "It's much more enjoyable for children to walk to school with their friends," she said.

She said fewer cars on the roads improved the environment, while walking taught children road awareness. Some who had been driven to school till they were 11 started at secondary school without knowing how to cross the road.

Getting more children to walk or cycle to school and reduce congestion is one of 13 targets the council pledged to achieve in its Public Service Agreement with the government, signed last month. The council employs three safer routes to school officers.

About 40 per cent of Bucks children are driven to school compared with 29 per cent nationally, partly because the county is so rural and partly because more people in the county have cars than anywhere, apart from Surrey.

When a group of local councillors were asked how they used to get to school, only one admitted to having been driven, but they nearly all said their children and grandchildren went by car.

At Wycombe's Hamilton School, a large split site primary school on a hillside, there is now a 20mph limit, other safety measures and parents' parking permits, so they can wait for their children in residents' parking spaces between 3pm and 4pm.

Additionally, there are bikes for teachers to use to go from one school to another and a place for kids to change out of their wet clothes if they cycle.

At Holmer Green First School a travel plan includes two crocodile trails, where children walk to school together with parents looking after them, and Go for Gold, where kids get stickers for walking to school. There are several park and walk sites, including a pub car park, where parents can leave their cars and walk with the children to school, marked footpaths, and a car share scheme. The school also recruited its own school crossing patroller.

Headteacher Sue Huntley said the children insisted on walking even in the rain and that car use had dropped from 62 per cent to 32 per cent.

She said: "I was always very keen to get the children to walk and managed to get one of my parent governors Nicky Batkin involved. She and the other parents have been tremendous.

"The children's whole attitude to walking has changed."

Seer Green Combined School had the first crocodile trail in the county, which started in September 1999 after parent Tamara Russell got one going. Mrs Russell won the Jet Smile road safety award a year ago for this.

Ley Hill School in Chesham has 54 children coming to school in three crocodile trails, the most in the county. The trails celebrated their first birthday on Monday.

Liz Thorp, who organises the trails, and takes one group everyday, said between them the children had walked 3,000 miles. She has two children at the school, and son David has never done anything but walk.

Rebecca used to be driven, but, quite honestly said Mrs Thorp, by the time she had got her daughter in the car at one end, parked and got her out at the other it was easier to walk the half mile.

She said: "The trails make an impressive sight."

In Beaconsfield, Butlers Court, the secondary and the high schools are working on a project involving 2,000 children, which will include traffic calming and marked footpaths across fields.

Other local schools working on plans include Marlow Infants, and Cressex Upper.