In a scramble to enforce the tram gate, traffic is literally forced on to Penistone Road and up Parkside Road. At the junction of Parkside Road and Leppings Lane, all the traffic becomes gridlocked. Here, the traffic completely surrounds Hillsborough primary school and nursery with two and three lanes of traffic. I’m sure the petrol fumes must do wonders for the children’s health.

Then, the recent fiasco of the Myers Grove/Wisewood schools – and some of the things Labour councillors haven’t told us.

Take a child who lives at Winn Gardens. Because there will be no buses provided they will have to walk (all those statistics are over a school period of five years), some 5,000 miles, time spent walking to school some 1,500 hours. They will encounter six or seven major crossings totalling 1,200 over a period of five years. At Rivelin/Stannington bottom, it will mean something like one to 1.5 million bodies crossing in a child’s lifetime at that school.

I do realise that these children will have a choice to go to Bradfield which, from Winn Gardens, is roughly about the same distance.

I wonder if the council has done a traffic census or a risk assessment, or perhaps they do not think this is necessary? As a lot of this will be done on cold, dark winter mornings, and, no doubt wet, I wonder if, at the new school, the children will be provided with drying rooms? Or free warm drinks when they arrive wet through?

I don’t doubt, and understand and believe, the Stannington residents, when they say they need a new school, but would they like their children to walk to Middlewood for roughly one hour on cold and wet winter mornings? I think not and, if you think Harry Harpham has your children’s interests at heart, think again. He should not expect children to endure these tasks and, in particular, the issue of traffic surrounding Hillsborough primary school.

I will never vote Labour again, they are putting children’s lives and health at risk.

Mr G Fawcett, Dixon Road, Sheffield S6