There will not be a children’s safety village in Lambton County.

The community group which has worked on the village which would have helped school age children learn safety procedures won’t be building the project.

“We feel that with the Covid-19 virus regulations it is going to be impossible for us to go further and/or survive. It is a reality check for us for sure,” says Lambton Children’s Safety Village Chair Mary Ann Buntrock in a letter to Lambton County councillors. The county pledged $100,000 to the project.

“There are several areas of concerns for us that being social distancing, busing issues, fundraising and what our final education system will look like. A lot of our work is a hands on environment and heaven forbid a child or anybody would get the virus through us, Buntrock said.

“It’s going to be a new world and priorities will be changing with some being good and some being bad.”

St. Clair Township Mayor Steve Arnold had worked with the group since 2011 to try to secure a home for the village.

“It’s too bad,” he says. “Its quite a blow to the community. There is always impacts not having the children taught special safety things in that setting.”

“They were working on it so long,” Arnold added “they were just out of gas.”