What does your primary school do about illegal parking?

[SchoolParkingPests]

I live on a cul-de-sac, far enough away from a primary school that I didn't think parking would be an issue when I bought it, but it is. It is a popular urban primary school with a small catchment area, so the vast majority of the pupils must live within walking distance.

The parents are absolutely feral when it comes to parking. Double yellow lines, making it impossible to safely pull out of the road, and I've even had to get out of my car to direct traffic just so I can reach my own house because it was so congested no one could move.

Normally, I feel I have no alternative but to park across my own driveway to prevent people blocking me in. Yesterday I had to go out in the car, only to see on my CCTV that someone had decided to block in my work van.

I have clear CCTV of their faces, though they managed to park so that their numberplate was obscured. I emailed this to the school, asking them to speak to the individuals involved - I'm sure they must know who they are, they cannot be letting children leave with random unidentified adults. They have refused.

Their solution? We'll put a general note in the newsletter (I'm sure they've done that a hundred times before, so why would it change now?) or I should contact the police, who "might" come out. The police don't visit for burglaries, so fat chance of them turning out for this, the school is just passing the buck onto another organisation that they know will do nothing.

If there was a fire, there would be absolutely no chance of the fire brigade being able to get down the road at school run time. Same thing for a medical emergency - and there are lots of elderly residents on the street.

What do schools normally do about parking? This school seems entirely unwilling to take even the most basic action of speaking to the individuals identified on CCTV.

The school aren't responsible for the parents bad parking and are correct to direct you to the police (or council depending on parking regulations).

A generic letter seems appropriate. Our school has junior road safety officers who "patrol" the village.

The school aren’t going to go and confront specific van drivers just to help you out. They are places of education and are there to teach your kids. Ring the police yourself.

The school can’t actually do anything except ask parents to park considerately.

Speak to your local fire station - ours got the police and council interested as they were concerned about access.

There are now regular traffic warden patrols at drop off and pick up times.

Schools have literally no control of what happens on public roads, and I would imagine everyone is too busy to be checking CCTV for parking violations. It’s a police/highways matter. Why does this myth that it’s a school’s responsibility persist?

When my kids were at primary there were terrible problems with parking. Double yellow lines and zigzags being blocked. They arranged for a traffic warden to come out at morning drop off and again in the afternoon and ticketed the whole lot.
That stopped it 😅

It got so bad round our school (parents blocking pavements with parked cars, mostly) that people started taking photos of the cars and sending them to the head.

Each week the photos are sent to the police. The first week, the drivers were given advice. Thereafter, they get fined.

But I wish the wonderful head didn't need to spend their precious time this way!

Talk to your parish council or the school governors or both. At my boys old school parking ward on came at least once a week. They put enough parking charges out to pay his wage for that hour I'm sure.

At my local school if I park further away on a quite road I had a man out waving his arms at me for parking in very space on the side of his house not blocking his drive. Now I park on mass with the rest of the parents. I'd love to walk but it's a 45 minute walk and I have to be back for my disabled sons taxi. So part walking isn't a option as I don't feel safe.

This is always going to a problem living near a school.

They had the police come in to consult on a new dismissal and car management plan. I live in a sleepy little town where the police still do that sort of thing.

It wasn't a van driver, that parked across my driveway. It was a parent and child who then disappeared off in the direction of the school.

Schools are there to teach children. One of the lessons they might teach them is that they have to follow the law, even when it's inconvenient. Another is to be considerate of other people, even when that means slightly more work (walking) for you.

My local primary sympathise but say they can't do anything. When my kids were at school part of the home school agreement was we wouldn't park in the road the school was on or adjacent roads so the cars were more spread out with the kids walking the last 400m or so to school instead of people fighting to drop the as close as possible. People did follow the rule and it was rare to see anyone break it.

It’s disingenuous to suggest that the problem is nothing to do with the school. If the school wasn’t there, there wouldn’t be a problem with these cars - they are coming to the school. So I think the school/council ought to do something to sort the problem out.

Lots of people drive because they have to go on to work or don’t walk for whatever reason. Or indeed because they simply want to drive.

The presence of the school, and the drop off arrangements - and the lack of parking facilities - are all contributing factors to this.

This kind of stuff has been going on decades at thousands of schools up and down the country.

it will be an unpopular opinion, but I believe that when people are put in a difficult position, they will do stuff like park illegally. Asking them to stop is no good - as I said this is a decades old problem.

Our school, and a few other local schools have been quite proactive. Probably helped by the fact that these schools are in culdesacs of elderly peoples bungalows. Our school have made an agreement with the local football club just across the recreation ground from the school so parents can park in the football club car park, the Catholic school is allowed to use the Catholic church car park, another has asked a local pub if parents can use the car park for drop off and pick up, another has asked the local village hall if parents can park there and walk. All these agreements have significantly helped the parking problems and I would say 90% of parents use them.

We get regular texts and emails from the school about parking. It's the same parents every time so I guess they're the ones who don't care.
It's not the school's responsibility though ultimately, you need to speak to the council.

If you cannot get your vehicle off your drive you can contact the police to have it removed, however you cannot contact them because you cannot get onto your drive. It's annoying, I lived near a school once and they named and shamed parents by putting lists of offending numberplates up, guessing that's no longer gdpr compliant

I see cars and vans photographed and shamed on social media

I don’t think the children are the ones parking or driving.

They aren’t there to tell parents off about bad parking though.

I emailed this to the school, asking them to speak to the individuals involved

Asking the school to speak to individual drivers like this really isn’t their job.

Children learn by example.

DD's old primary school had this problem. I remember the regular notice in the newsletter about parking.

The school together with the residents then got the council involved and they managed to get the police one afternoon and they spoke to each parent who parked incorrectly. We also saw an uptake on parking wardens.

They tried to get the councillor for our area to add additional parking restrictions but unfortunately he was a pompous a** who came in his Chelsa Tractor and was sorry but he couldn't see the problem.

So, there are things the school can do or at least try but it depends if they want to.

Our nearest primary has a "school street" in operation, which means a section of the road is closed (other than to residents) between specified hours in term time. It means that parking has to be far more widely dispersed (if you can't go along the street to the front of the school, then there's not much point in going along one of the ones at the side either, and so it is a case of park and walk from quite a bit further away (which means, I think, that some have given up on driving).

It's much safer for pedestrians since it came in - far less dodging between cars, no cars mounting the pavement.

Perhaps you could see if one could be established round your school.

They did a 2 pronged approach at my children's massive primary, one was mini traffic wardens so year 5 or 6 children in high vis with the local PCSO to shame parents about where they parked. The other was to have a full week of a traffic warden ticket every parent who parked illegally so that at least some of them were punished for their horrific parking. The PCSO would also be there around drop off so their presence made some parents think twice.

Later the double yellow lines around the school were extended and a few houses also basically shouted at the parents which terrified the children and stopped them parking over their drives.

The thing with everyone living close to school is that those parents tend to drive to school because they need to head straight to work after drop off or are last minute picking up too. The school had over 750 pupils in it as it had a preschool nursery too. Parking was always really bad.

Schools don't and shouldn't do anything about members of the public parking on a public road. They if they are causing an obstruction You should call the police

I agree. But schools don’t teach their parents.
Labour plan to have schools clean children’s teeth each day. I’m fed up of having everything land on schools.

Most councils have a way of reporting antisocial parking - we have used this successfully by reporting every car that was parked illegally or antisocially. When the reports start to ramp up, the local council send out the wardens or police which stops the issue for a while....
And I say that as a fellow parent rather than resident - just because a few parents ignore the rules and constant pleas from the school to behave considerately we don't all want to be tarred with the same brush!

There is really no point in contacting the school governors - they are every bit as powerless to do anything as the Headteacher. I work for a number of schools in London, and I don't know of a primary school where entitled parents don't cause a problem with inconsiderate parking. The Headteacher of one school I worked for used to go out to try to reason with the parents, but was threatened, abused, and ignored constantly. Most schools in the boroughs where I work are entitled to a half termly visit by parking enforcers, who give out a few tickets, but the problem is as bad as ever within a couple of days. School street schemes have been introduced in some areas now where the roads are closed to traffic for around an hour at drop off and pick up times, but it really only moves the problem into nearby roads.