Cycling UK Forum

Mike,
I am one of the Right to Ride representatives in Hampshire. The policy issued by St. Mary Bourne is not unusual. It emanates from a policy that has been in force for some time developed by the Road Safety Team at Hampshire County Council and is based in part on some research quite a few years ago that the brains of children under 10 were not developed sufficiently to assess risk. The policy has at least softened a little. It used to be that no cycle training was done in Hampshire until a child was 10 and this made it virtually impossible for a child to cycle to school if of primary age.
I will try and find out if there are any schools in rural areas such as St. Mary Bourne that allow younger children to cycle to school. It would have to be a comparable situation, i.e. one with a B road running through it that can be busy at times. You could then cite these schools to the head teacher.
Regards
Sue Coles
Suecoles1@aol.com