Youngsters from Edith Moorhouse School and St Joseph’s School took part in an Oxfordshire County Council Fire and Rescue Service competition to encourage drivers to kill their speed.

The designers of the two best posters from hundreds of entries will be presented with prizes from Carterton Town Mayor Cllr Norman MacRae MBE.

Hi-vis jacket hand-out

RAF Brize Norton representatives and senior officers from Thames Valley Police will also be on hand to hand out hi-visibility waistcoats to children taking part in the competition.

The waistcoats, funded by West Oxfordshire Community Safety Partnership and Carterton Town Council, are the first of around 1,000 due to be sent out to a total of six West Oxfordshire primary schools to make young people more visible when walking and cycling.

The schools receiving the waistcoats are Edith Moorhouse School, St Joseph’s School, Gateway Primary, Carterton Primary, Brize Norton Primary and  St John the Evangelist School.

Partnership success

Oxfordshire County Council’s Cabinet Member for Safer and Stronger Communities Judith Heathcoat said: “It’s fantastic to see what can be achieved by different organisations working together. Each has put in either staff time or money, or both, and delivered more than the sum of the individual parts.”

Councillor Verena Hunt, Chairman of West Oxfordshire Community Safety Partnership, said: “We are very pleased to help fund the purchase of the waistcoats for these young school children. I hope they will be safer now that other road users can see them more easily on the darker winter evenings.”

Cllr MacRae added: “The Town Council is very pleased to be involved in ensuring these vulnerable road users are safe. If the jackets prevent even one accident the money will have been well spent. The Council also supports the Carterton Community Safety Campaign which is encouraging all our residents to take sensible precautions to promote their own safety.”

The competition was part of a wider road safety campaign involving the county council, Thames Valley Police, West Oxfordshire District Council, Carterton Town Council and RAF Brize Norton.