STUDENTS at a Portishead school will be able to walk to class more safely after council chiefs gave plans for a new crossing the green light. Parents, governors, residents, councillors and staff from Highdown Infants and Juniors have been busy campaigning

STUDENTS at a Portishead school will be able to walk to class more safely after council chiefs gave plans for a new crossing the green light.Parents, governors, residents, councillors and staff from Highdown Infants and Juniors have been busy campaigning for a zebra crossing to be installed at Down Road as part of its school travel plan.The school travel plan committee launched a campaign for the crossing in January following a number of near accidents with children crossing the road to class.A 400-signature petition was handed to North Somerset Council as part of the drive for a new crossing.Now council purseholders have earmarked the cash to install the crossing this financial year.Parent governor and member of the school travel plan committee Blake Symes said: "Overall the school has been campaigning for four years for a crossing, but in January, following a few near misses we relaunched the campaign as part of our work on the school travel plan."In September there will be nearly 700 children from the nursery, infants and junior schools using the site."This crossing is desperately needed and well overdue."Portishead councillor Jon Gething supported the need for the crossing and handed the petition to North Somerset Council.Councillor Gething said: "There have been calls for this crossing for a number of years and I am pleased to see it is now going to happen and more children will be able to walk to school safely."North Somerset Council spokesman Nick Yates said: "We are looking to install a crossing outside the schools and will be starting some preliminary design work in the next few days.