PARENTS were full of support for a new safety scheme that closes the road outside their children’s school during drop-off and pick-up times.

Signs and plastic fencing were used to open up part of St Leonards Road, at the front of Fairlight Primary School in Brighton, to pedestrians yesterday as part of the School Streets project.

This made it the first school in the city to use the new measures, with road closures being introduced outside 13 others when they return on Monday.

The project aims to persuade more people to choose to walk or cycle to school, as well as working to encourage active travel during the coronavirus pandemic.

Parents of pupils at Fairlight Primary School were pleased with how the road closure had worked outside the site.

They spoke to The Argus yesterday morning as they dropped their children off.

Rachel Pearce, whose children Alfred, five, and Harry, nine, are pupils at Fairlight, said the new measures made the area far safer for youngsters.

The 46-year-old said: “The road closure seems to be going OK.

“It gives the advantage of social distancing and you have not got to worry about little ones running across the road. This seems like quite a nice way of doing things.

“People did tend to queue up rather than parking, so crossing over the road could be quite dangerous.”

Shirley Beech, who is a teaching assistant at the school, which her grandson Archie attends, agreed the road closure had a positive effect.

The 64-year-old said the school had practised the measures in advance, and the headmaster spent Thursday, an inset day, at the site making sure everybody would be able to enter smoothly and safely on their first day back.

She said: “Our kids came back for a few days before the summer holidays and we had this in place then – at the time there was more social distancing. Today it has been really good, you have got the space to stand in the road and spread out.

“I think, for a safety measure, it’s been great. We have a great head so parents have been messaged in advance to tell them how to enter the school.”

She said there are two gates so pupils’ entry times are staggered with older and younger children going in through different gates.

“I’m really excited for my grandson to go back,” Shirley said.