Two local Wollongong schools will have their safety zones upgraded to flashing lights status from early next month.

Mt St Thomas Public School and St Brigid’s Primary School at Gwynneville will have existing static school safety zone signs exchanged for flashing lights to improve the pedestrian safety of local school children.

Installing flashing signs in school zones has been shown to improve driver awareness of the need to reduce speed when entering a school zone.

New flashing signs will be installed from Monday, 6 February 2017 at Mt St Thomas Public School and St Brigid’s Primary School.

The new flashing signs will be tested to ensure they are fully operational and the old static signs will be removed.

Comments attributable to Paul Scully MP:

“Nothing is more important than the safety of children and pedestrians near our local schools.

“I’m very pleased to announce that two local schools in my electorate – Mt St Thomas Public and St Brigid’s Primary at Gwynneville - will be part of a major upgrade of school safety zones across the state.

“Flashing lights near school zones are more effective than static signage in warning drivers that they are about to enter a school safety zone and that they should reduce their speed and be very careful.

“Work to install the new flashing lights will start on Monday, 6 February and end by Sunday, 5 March.

“There will be some traffic changes in the school safety zones at these two local school locations during this period.”