Driving Improvement Awards

Welcome to the bid submission form for the 2026/27 PATROL Driving Improvement Awards – a programme to inspire and fund local authority communications projects that effect positive change in the delivery of services or public engagement.

The Awards are your authority’s opportunity to help drive change, nationally. If successful, funding of up to £25,000 will be made available for your parking or traffic team (or associated communications team) to deliver a communications campaign or activity in your local area, with winning bids also assessed on the scope and opportunity they include for the project to be replicated across the whole PATROL membership in England and Wales.

This year's theme: School parking and safety

Traffic outside schools creates daily risks for children and parents.

Cars parked on zig-zags, across dropped kerbs or on the pavement obstruct safe routes and restrict visibility, often pushing pedestrians into the road, especially during school pick-up and drop-off times. Problem parking near schools also causes congestion and air pollution from the idling of engines.

Road collisions and accidents near schools remain a serious problem, with civil enforcement activity playing a key role in the prevention of motorist behaviours that increase the risk and likelihood of dangerous incidents. Every month, about 1,200 children are injured in traffic collisions that occur within 500 metres of a school. Most incidents occur at drop-off and pick-up, and fall by almost half during school holidays, demonstrating how strongly the 'school run' contributes to unsafe conditions on our roads.

Aggressive driver behaviour associated with school drop-off and pick-up is also increasing, and PATROL regularly hears of the abuse directed towards staff or volunteers who manage traffic at school times.

Parents and schools are increasingly vocal about these issues, with surveys showing that over a third of parents won’t walk their child to school because the roads are too busy or traffic is too fast.

During PATROL's recent authority user groups, council officers identified school parking and safety as the primary concern about driver behaviour and the topic that they consider to be the most urgent to collectively address.



Existing measures available to authorities

Local authorities cannot address every issue, but they can seek to target those behaviours linked to problem parking and traffic management. Authorities already enforce a range of restrictions relevant to school parking and road safety, including:

• ‘School Keep Clear’ zig-zag markings: Enforcing no-stopping restrictions to keep sightlines open at the very point children and parents cross.
• Waiting and loading restrictions: Targeting parking on double yellows, single yellows, loading / un-loading, as well as double parking and stopping on corners, where it causes congestion or risk to pedestrians.
• Dropped kerbs and crossings: Restrictions to stop drivers blocking pedestrian crossing points, in order to reduce issues experienced by families with prams and wheelchairs.
• Pavement parking: While authorities await long-promised powers, they can only rely on street-by-street Traffic Regulation Orders to restrict pavement parking in school areas. Obstruction of the pavement directly undermines safe walking routes; again, particularly for pram and wheelchair users, or those without sight or partially sighted.
• Vehicle entry restrictions through ‘School Streets’: Where councils have Part 6 moving traffic powers under the Traffic Management Act 2004, they can enforce banned turns, no entries and introduce ‘School Streets’ schemes with cameras, restricting traffic at peak times.

Choice of campaign or activities: Time for fresh thinking!

School parking and road safety around schools is not a new concern. Past campaigns have often focused on education and awareness, using banners, posters and often pupil-designed signs to remind drivers of their responsibilities.

Authorities have also asked parents to make ‘no parking pledges’ and have used one-off enforcement crackdowns, issuing warnings or fines over a set period. While these interventions may show temporary results, the benefits often fade once a campaign ends and former habits return. Further, while they may help raise visibility at a particular site, they rarely change ingrained behaviour and may simply shift the problems to nearby streets.

More recent activities have included the introduction of ‘Park and Stride’ schemes to encourage parents to park further from a school and walk the rest of the way with their children, as well as ‘School Streets’. Success, though, also depends on strong community support, otherwise the problem again risks being ignored or displaced.

Given this history, PATROL wants to inspire fresh thinking and challenge authorities to find new tactics to make a lasting difference for school parking and road safety through the Driving Improvement Awards.

The Joint Committee is particularly keen to see campaigns or activities that incorporate:

• The use of technology or data to improve safety awareness or outcomes
• Creative ways to highlight the issue of dangerous parking around schools and address driver behaviours
• Hard-hitting public awareness campaigns that amplify the significant safety issues caused by irresponsible driving behaviours around schools
• Long-term, replicable solutions, with funding providing a model or suite of assets / materials for other authorities.