COLEBROOK Infants School pupils are getting creative to raise awareness of road safety.

The youngsters have been challenged to design posters to hammer home to drivers the dangers of speeding and parking in the wrong area.

The idea came after a meeting between residents and PC Jo Phelps, Stratton St Margaret beat officer for Wiltshire Police.

Jo said: "Every three months the neighbourhood policing team meet with members of the community, and as the area's beat officer I'm there too.

This is done in order to find out about the issues the community is concerned about.

"One thing that came up was the problem of speeding near the school.

"Now I don't think the people, who are most likely to be residents or parents, are breaking the speed limit, but it's a case of that speed not being right for the area.

"I think people forget sometime that there are children about and they need to be careful.

"Parents might have teenagers now and have probably forgotten what dangers their kids faced when they were little.

"The idea behind this competition is to raise awareness about road safety and also encourage drivers to slow down.

"It's important for the local police and schools to work together to help sort out these kind of problems that arise in areas, before something untoward happens.

"Road safety is a vital thing to be aware about, especially around schools."

Heateacher of the school in Coleview, Sue Carvey, said she was pleased that the police and the school were working together. She said: "The kids will be designing two posters, one highlighting the dangers of speeding and the other to encourage people to stop parking in the wrong area.

"I would quite welcome this idea about having a 20mph zone near the school. There are a lot of ideas that are being thrown around on how to put more emphasis on the topic.

"We have always told the parents to drop the children off at the community centre, from where they can walk through an internal path and get to the school.

"That way they don't even come near a road.

"The majority of the parents do follow this but there are some who don't and I think this will just be a reminder and highlight how important this matter is.

"We are working with the council to come up with a few ideas of doing something around the school that might curb the problem."