EFFORTS to improve the safety of schoolchildren have been given a boost.

Hartlepool Borough Council has been awarded a £90,000 government grant to fund a school travel plan coordinator for the next three years.

The successful applicant, expected to start in April, will be working with pupils, teachers and parents, police and health officials to address school journey travel issues.

These will include cutting the number of accidents, moving parked cars from school gates, reducing congestion, providing children with skills such as road safety awareness and making children and their parents more familiar with public transport.

Ideas for tackling issues may include providing cycle storage areas in schools, staging cycling and pedestrian training sessions to reduce the likelihood of youngsters being involved in accidents and improving access to public transport.

It is hoped that many of these initiatives, which are designed to reduce reliance on the car, will also help to improve the general fitness of youngsters.

The plan coordinator will be based in the council's highways and transportation division and work closely with the road safety unit.

Paul Watson, the council's road safety officer, said: "We are already doing a lot of work to improve the safety of schoolchildren in Hartlepool, but this extra member of staff will enable us to do so much more.

"The most recent statistics showed that road accident casualties in Hartlepool had fallen significantly and this new post will help us to build on that."