A local estate agent has paid for portable “safe parking” signs to be introduced at a local primary school that suffers from irresponsible parking by parents dropping off or collecting children.
CJ Hole Bradley Stoke Property Centre recently handed over the road safety signs to Meadowbrook Primary School, to encourage parents to park safely and refrain from parking on the yellow zig-zag lines outside the school.
The local estate agent got in touch with schools in the local area following a successful campaign at schools in the Henleaze and Westbury-On-Trym areas.
Parents had approached the company’s Henleaze branch after speaking about safety problems with parking outside their local schools.
The “thank you for parking safely” signs, which will be placed outside the school at the beginning and end of the school day by staff members, are already in use at Henleaze Junior School, Westbury-on-Trym Primary School and Oasis School Westbury and will be rolled out to other schools in Bradley Stoke and Stoke Gifford over the next few weeks.
The scheme has received the support of the local community police team and Beat Manager WPC Claire Fletcher was present during the hand over of the signs at a school assembly. She reminded the children of the importance of general road safety when they are walking to school and riding their bicycles.
Karen Rupprecht, CJ Hole Lettings Manager/Director, said:
“The school already promote the importance of road safety to both parents and children but we wanted to help them encourage parents to safely park their cars when taking their children to and from school, and to remind them that parking in the zig-zag areas can be very dangerous, not to mention illegal.”
Meadowbrook Headteacher Jon Barr added:
“Parking around our school is an issue that the school and our neighbours have worked hard to improve. We are very pleased to have the support of a local business to remind everyone visiting the area, including some of our families, that they need to park safely to ensure our children’s safety. Bob, our caretaker, will be putting the signs that have been donated onto our zig-zag lines and we are hoping to see everybody in the community respect them.”
Irresponsible parking has long been an issue in the streets surrounding Meadowbrook Primary School. In 2008, a ‘zero tolerance month’ saw a number of fixed penalty tickets issued to motorists parking on the pavement and blocking drives in Crystal Way. Later the same year, a ‘three strikes’ scheme asked residents to report occurrences of illegal or inconsiderate parking to the school and motorists committing a third offence were issued with a parking fine of £30 or £60 and three penalty points.
The school has an arrangement with the nearby Three Brooks public house that permits parents to park in the pub’s car park around the school’s opening and closing times. The car park is situated less than 100 metres walk from the school’s rear entrance in Snowberry Close. Despite this facility, parents continue to park in Crystal Way and Three Brooks Lane, which often creates a safety hazard for children crossing the road and vehicles turning in and out of Crystal Way.
Writing in a recent school newsletter, the Headteacher claimed the school has a “very good record of children walking to school” but added:
“South Gloucestershire [Council] have supplied me with a map that shows there are some families who still drive to school even though they live very close to the school. If that is you why not try a change to your routine …”
The observation was made with reference to Walk to School Week 2011, which took place earlier this month.
The worst bit is Crystal Way, it is a narrow, windy road, but parents still insist on parking on both sides of the road, across drive ways and even up on the pavements so it is difficult to walk along, especially with a pram or wheel chair. Those that drive often arrive up to 20 mins early to get a space close to the school, if they walked they could leave their houses later and arrive at school on time. I saw these new signs on Friday, on Three Brooks lane, and they were working, but there were none in Crystal way, so when a coach tried to get out of the school car park, it could not, because of inconsiderate parkers.
I totally agree, the parents of this school are very inconsiderate the way they park in Crystal Way, my friend lives there and the parents park on peoples driveways which are free just so they can get closer to the school, they then get funny when you ask them move from the driveway.They seem to think they have a right to park anywhere to stop themselves and their children having to walk. They also make it impossible for large delivery vehicles etc to access the road during this time as they park both side of road. I have seen parents sat their in their cars waiting from 2.40pm just so they get good parking space.
It’s a pity the school couldn’t try and do more to help the poor residents of Crystal way who suffer everyday from inconsiderate parents.
Maybe our PCSOs would like to come and apply the law they are paid to uphold? The carrot approach will never work with irresponsible parents who will always take advantage, n matter what the school.
Time to give them some stick, in a metaphorical sense of course 🙂
I have seen the PCSOs there on several occasions and, surprise surprise, the problem seems to disappear when they are there.