Works to provide a zebra crossing for schoolchildren on a busy Woodford Green road could start in March after councillors found another £20,000 in funding.

The area two committee agreed on January 29 to put £15,000 into a crossing in Broadmead Road to help children going from the Orchard Estate to Ray Lodge Primary School in Snakes Lane East.

Now, councillors have moved quickly to use an existing Transport for London grant for safer routes to school to find the remaining difference and green-light the scheme, to sit near the junction with Finchingfield Avenue.

Cllr Ian Bond, the council’s deputy leader and a Roding ward councillor, said: “We’re pleased, we were expecting to have to go to cabinet and argue the case.

“The surveys show half the people who use the road are schoolchildren.”

Parents from the Woodford Green primary and residents on the estate called for the crossing in 2009.

The road is also crossed by pupils going to Woodbridge High School in St Barnabas Road.

A traffic survey showed 85 per cent of cars travelled at 37mph on the road during the morning school rush-hour.

Cllr Bond has been told the funding will not need to be approved by cabinet.