The trade body behind an annual gate safety week are looking for a school to front this year’s campaign.

Safety campaigners are once again mounting a high profile drive . And this time school children will be playing a critically important role.

The Door & Hardware Federation (DHF) wants the chosen school to spearhead the campaign into other schools to reduce the risks posed by incorrectly installed and poorly maintained automated gates.

The DHF estimates that up to 70% of automated gate installations are unsafe, many of which would have been installed pre-2010. Chief executive Bob Perry said: “There is still a lot of work to do to lower that figure. Promoting the Gate Safety Week initiative to the education sector is just the beginning. We want to educate the educators, who will then educate the populace. Each year we call upon leading manufacturers, installers, and maintainers of automated gates to support our crusade, which they do willingly.”

The campaign is starting off with an appeal to schools to run a competition in the summer term among pupils to design a poster on the theme: Safe Gates Save Lives, with entries due in by the beginning of June.

The winning pupil will receive a prize and the successful school will win a quantity of art supplies. The winning poster will be used in a high-profile publicity campaign in the run up to Gate Safety Week 2017.

The poster will help educate schools, parents, and children on safety around automated gates, with the intention of rolling it out to all schools within the UK.

Schools wanting to enter the competition should contact Patricia Sowsbery-Stevens, DHF Marketing Manager, on 01827 52337 or emailpatricia@dhfonline.org.uk for further information.