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.

Schools teach children not the parents. If schools had the time/resources to teach parents life skills then considerate parking would be way down the bottom of the list. Massively irritating for you OP about the parking but absolutely zero the school can do.

Ours does nothing. I’ve seen one parent sit in a car for 30 mins whilst on double yellows and halfway on the pavement blocking push chairs. They seem to do this every day.

Theres a huge area for parking less than 10m away so I don’t get it. Laziness and selfish.

If you don’t have the time or energy for all the reporting etc. You could adopt some passive aggressive tactics.
I've seen cards that state "you're parking like a c*unt" which you can put under the wiper. Or go for the more aggressive and annoying pasting with vaseline or similar on their windscreen anA4 sheet of paper which says "you are parking over a driveway, stop being inconsiderate ".
If it's pasted on then it is hard and annoying to remove, so individuals will stop just because it inconvenices them! Good luck

I've noticed some official looking people checking parking outside DD's school recently, I walk so haven't paid much attention but if you keep reporting it something might happen

When my daughter was at her infant school there were a couple of near misses when parents were parked on the zig zags. The school couldn't do anything to stop the way parents were parking and they were only able to get one parking enforcement visit each half term, so, with the approval of the Headteacher, a group of parents got together to put traffic cones outside the school. I spent a couple of hours driving round liberating traffic cones from car parks etc and we organised a rota for two parents at a time to put out half a dozen cones along the zig zag area every morning and afternoon. We got so much abuse from the parents who were no longer able to park outside, but it did help a lot!

My children's school has a large banner outside and little standees who they put out at drop off/ pickup to block the zigzags. There are also frequent messages to parents and a section of the newsletter which "names and shames" listing reg numbers of badly parked cars.

They have also encouraged the council to send traffic wardens from time to time.

Coincidentally, there is actually a cul-de-sac slightly further away which is a very popular spot for parents to park because there are no yellow lines!

Does the school have a "walking bus"? If you can get more kids to walk to school there will be fewer cars.

The parking by school run mums (yes 100% mums) is a disgrace. I don't deny that men are just as capable but in my own experience living near a school run bus stop it was 100% mums who ignored any resemblance of the laws regarding safe parking.

On a bend/Blocking pavements/Turning a road that could easily fit 3 cars abreast into single lane carriageway/Children having to cross the road between parked cars etc etc.

I once had it out with a mother who constantly blocked the path with her car. A mother who lived about 50 yards from my own house and who refused to walk the 300 yards to the bus stop with her DC. I got sick of walking on the mud to get past her car and admit to catching her wing mirror with my hip which made a big noise when it sprung back. She got out and went batshit. I pointed out how ignorant her parking was and how dangerous it was to others. All she could counter was "Who are you to tell me where to park". Eventually i looked across at the 3 mothers who were stood on the opposite side of the road, all with prams who would have zero chance of passing this car if they needed to. Not one of them joined me or could even look us in the eye.

TBH at that point i just gave up. Fuck em. My children are now beyond the age to worry and i am not really inconvenienced by stupid people tbh. I refuse now to let them enter my headspace. I do wait for the news story of one of those poor children getting mowed down by a car but that wont be my guilt.

With regards to people parking in front of drives, that's what brake fluid in squeezy bottles is for...... (Joke)

By all means advocate for a change in the law if you want to, albeit you'll probably want to look up the definition of business first.

However, as things stand, schools are only doing what the one near you is doing because that's all they can do. They've no more rights to control who parks where than you do, and have no business seeking to tell people where to park. So you're going to get the same answers from everyone.

Other than a regular reminder in the app etc what on earth do you expect them to do.

They are not responsible for the actions of individuals. Nor do they have the time nor bandwidth for what goes on outside their premises.

By all means approach the relevant authorities. The school isn't the relevant authority.

As others have said, this is a police or council matter, not the role of the school.

Threads like this worry me.
The only school I could get my child into is a 5 minute drive away. I'm really worried about the parking. I don't want to annoy anyone!
It's certainly not walkable, and I'm struggling to find anywhere close by I can park which won't annoy a resident or two.

The school local to me tried this, got the local community centre to agree to parents using their car park and the walking bus starting from there. Hardly anyone used it and they gave up in the end.

Not that much really

Lots of passive aggressive emails

Wingeing on the local fbook page

If it's a small school and specific, persistent individuals then the school can definitely have a conversation with them if they want to. My mum lives opposite a primary school and this one parent took to parking on my mum's actual driveway, blocking my mum in. Every day. The head spoke to the parent a couple of times, and it stopped.

Think you'll find if that is building a new school that would be taken into account. This isn't a new school though

Sadly it's not the school's job to police lazy and feckless parents. All we could ever do when I was a governor was ask, send notes home, etc.... But those that are the way inclined to block drives rarely respond to requests.

Talk to the school, but don't expect miracles..

And more pupils walking to school would be amazing but our society is too backward and worried about false issues to ever really address it.

They can have a conversation, in the same way that anyone can. There's bugger all they can do to actually make the parent take any notice.

You and your neighbours should all park on the street for a week so they can't park there.

See how that goes

Both of your examples are of new businesses where the impact on parking and traffic are considered as part of the planning application process. I expect that most schools in the UK have been in place for some time, and went through whatever planning approval process existed at the time. My daughter’s school was built in the 1900s so car traffic wasn’t a consideration then!

As other people have said, you should report the parking issues to your local council and your local councillor, as parking issues are generally the responsibility of the local council, not the police.

Schools are mostly very old and predate ( here) a lot of the houses next to the school. There was also a phase of increasing numbers on roll.

I honestly have to raise a eyebrow at the people buying houses ten years old next to a 1960s school as the case in the village. Or next to victorian infants. Surely they didn't own their house before the victorians built it.

Lots of those residents bought those houses to guarantee they was in catchment.

There's a 3 million pound house next to my boys old school that has acres of garden and parking for ten cars. He used to have a bonfire every sports day and come out and take pictures of cars parked considerably and legally on the road. If I was him I'd just move as he was loaded. I bet he has had a blood pressure related incident by now. Because he didn't like seeing cars on his road or hearing kids playing. But the school was there first!

After much, much whining, our council now have a parking enforcement officer patrolling a few times a week at drop off or pick up. You never know when they'll be there and I'll bet they've made a fortune on parking tickets.
I'm always very dramatic when navigating cars parked on the pavement. Absolutely refuse to walk on the grass or the road so will squeeze past or ask them to close their doors etc to get past.
I do walk DS to school but on the days I need to go straight to work so need the car, I can manage to not park like a dick

We had some members of staff stand out on the pavement outside school and politely tell parents they weren't allowed to park on the zigzags or Keep Clear areas. All they got was a torrent of abuse. "You're not the police, you're only a fucking teacher - you can't tell me where to park etc"

The police did an awareness week where they patrolled at start of day, lunchtimes and end of day. The parents adhered but then just went back to their usual after that. We even had parents parking in the staff car park.

Sadly I don't know what the solution is as we haven't found it yet.

I was going to say the same - wonder whether it's the same school!

parking by the school is impossible, because it’s in a pedestrian zone. The other street which backs onto the school is residents only. The surrounding streets are residents only or meter pay. No houses have drives. A “school streets” zone is enforced in surrounding streets at school drop off and pick up times.

What do you expect the school to do? They don’t control the parents