THE safety of Wirral’s schoolchildren was forced to the top of the political agenda last night over secret plans to cut 18 crossing patrols to save the council £50,000 a year.

The savings are part of a package of cuts and savings which will shave £1.3m from the authority’s technical services budget.

A report, withheld from the public but presented to councillors last night, recommending “these budget savings be endorsed” was agreed by a scrutiny committee after being proposed by the ruling cabinet just over a week ago.

Yesterday afternoon, ahead of the meeting, the cabinet member for Streetscene and Transport Services, Cllr Jean Quinn, issued a statement to the Daily Post in defence of the controversial cuts.

The cuts would mean losing 18 crossings from outside schools across Wirral saving £37,000 in wages and almost £13,000 in “consumables and equipment”.

Cllr Quinn said: “The council has operated the School Crossing Patrol Service under national guidelines from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA).

“However, local circumstances around these crossings have changed; surveys undertaken last year demonstrated they failed to meet those objective criteria, and consequently the need for them no longer exists.”

But political opponents attacked the cuts saying the authority was “failing in its duty” to protect children walking to school, and also attacked the secrecy over which patrols would be cut.

Leah Fraser, prospective Conservative MP for Wallasey, said: “Is this the time to cut road safety around many of our schools?”

The report said those School Crossing Patrol personnel affected could be “re-deployed to sites where currently no permanent School Crossing Patrol is in post”.

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