ROAD safety campaigners have called for a highways panel to spend money on schemes outside schools.

A new team of borough and county councillors has been formed to decide how to spend £1million on highways projects in Colchester.

The first seven schemes, costing £200,000, will see new signs installed, lines repainted and roads resurfaced.

Campaigners want the next projects to be school safety improvements.

Dave Harris, borough councillor for Berechurch ward, is spearheading the Make School Road Safer campaign, backed by the Gazette.

He said the issue had already been raised with the panel twice but it is still not on its list of schemes.

There is a “wish list” of safety measures ranging from extra railings to a new footpath costing up to £70,000.

Mr Harris said: “We have to have an engineers’ report and backing, and the estimated price.”

The campaign was launched after Tiana Page, eight, was knocked down and seriously injured outside Monkwick Junior School, in School Road, in December.

A petition calling for improvements has 1,000 signatures.

Gerard Oxford, borough councillor for High Woods, is frustrated he has been asked to lodge an application for a pedestrian crossing in Brinkley Grove Road, Colchester.

He first applied for funding eight years ago, but the issue was back in the spotlight in October last year when Gilberd School pupil Sumika Purchase was hit by a car and her leg was broken.

Mr Oxford said: “How many times have we got to keep doing applications and providing evidence until they do something?”

A petition calling for action has 1,700 signatures.

The panel is made up of a cross-party group of nine county and borough councillors.

Anne Brown, a county councillor and joint chairman of the panel, said the first seven schemes had been agreed because they were the site of several accidents.

Mrs Brown said the remaining £800,000 had to be spent by March but urged the public to be patient.

The schemes are set to be approved by Essex County Council at Colchester Town Hall on August 2.