Dominic Bareham A CAMPAIGN for a vital footpath to ensure the safety of children walking to school has proved successful after fundraisers raised the money for the work.

Dominic Bareham

A CAMPAIGN for a vital footpath to ensure the safety of children walking to school has proved successful after fundraisers raised the money for the work.

The days of pupils having to share the partially made-up School Lane in Caister with passing traffic and getting muddy from water-filled craters in the road's surface could be a thing of the past as early as Easter after schools and councils clubbed together to collect £13,000 for the new gravel track.

And the news has pleased parents including Sharon Overill, 40, who has an eight-year-old daughter Erin at Caister First School.

She said: “I think we are all very pleased it is going to happen but it has taken a long while. It is good news that it is going to be done and what they are proposing to do will make it better.”

Pat Hacon, county councillor for Caister, said the funds were sufficient to pay for the gravel path which would be of a higher quality than the cheaper option, a slurry surface.

The walkway could be separated from the road by bollards.

Donations have come from the first and middle schools, which are paying a total of £5,000, while further money will come from the county council's children services department and the village parish council.

The existing path on the northern edge of the road is maintained by Norfolk County Council but sections are in a comparatively poor condition and do not have any verges.

Mr Hacon was hopeful Jack Chase, who owns School Lane, would make a contribution towards repairing the road surface.

The long-running saga started in November when Brendan McCarney, head of Caister First School, wrote to Peter Warner, head of planning and development at Great Yarmouth Borough Council, to complain about the state of the footway.