To think that if you object to parents collecting their children from school...

[EvilTwins]

...you shouldn't buy a house near one?

My DCs attend a large and popular primary school, built in the 1950s, which is at the end of a cul-de-sac in the middle of a large, privately owned, mostly 1950s and 1960s housing estate. The school has asked parents not to park on the actual cul-de-sac when they're picking up their DCs, and this is adhered to. However, it means that parents park their cars in neighbouring residential streets. Obviously everyone arrives at pretty much the same time, so there is a 20 minute period, twice a day, when the three or four streets surrounding the school are full of parked cars. About twice a term, we get letters home telling parents that local residents have complained about this. We're never offered a solution.

This only really affects me on a Friday, as my DCs go to after school club Monday-Thursday, but even considering that, I'm starting to get fed up with the letters home telling us off.

So AIBU? The school must pre-date the majority of the residents. If you choose to buy a house within spitting distance of an enormous primary school, shouldn't you just accept that parents might need to park in your road to drop their children off?

They park over driveways Chipping, and there are more than four, it's just that it's only those four who I know for certain the motives of.

Ds's school has a car park. Doesn't stop idiot drivers though but it does confine them to one place and take them off parking in the residential roads.

Back home, most of the time, but not always. She doesn't work afaik (well she seems to be home a lot during the day and always does the school runs) and she has a little dog aswell she could walk to the school with her.

I see her car pulling up outside her house when I come home. I have to drop off at the nursery so she manages to get back before me.

The catchment area for my ds's primary is measured in yards, yet everyone drives except me.

Needless to say, they all have fat arses.

Serves them right.

EvilTwins - do your DCs go to my DD's school? Sounds identical! In Surrey?

I sometimes wonder what other mums in our area think when they see me driving to school. They're leaving for school, walking, and I leave driving, and we both get there at the same time. But I'm going on to work, so the 10 min walk back home would mean I get to work 10 mins late. I'd rather walk if I could, saves the parking hassle! But when you judge the walking-distance driving parents, consider that they might be off to work.

Of course, some are just bone idle, and I know a few examples of that too.

Annie - no, Gloucestershire.

I live a few doors down for the local infant/junior school. When we bought the house we didn't even think about the increased traffic as we both worked full time and we had no children.. Move on 5 years we now have 2 children and I am home all day with them.

I have no problem with the mums who park outside decently (layby outside the row of cottages that we live in) but some of them are just shocking.

I have had one lady reverse into my car trying to squeeze her masive car into a tiny gap. people blocking me in so i have missed docters appointments for the kids. mums in their brand new 4x4 taking up two spaces so as not to let anyone park near them... the list goes on. Mums chatting for an hour outside my house not watching there little darlings pissing up my wall and climbing on my bloody gate........ grrrrr it makes me so cross.... Just some bloody consideration please mums that is all I ask.. I know I live near a school but geeze I dont think this kind of thing is acceptable at all..... also anyone who thinks it is only 10 mins twice a day is in denial it is an hour twice a day...

ps I once pulled up next to mrs 4x4 and asked if she would mind moving up a little so I could get in behind her and she just screamed a lot of abuse at me and got out of her car..... i went for coffee and waited for the dust to settle

I agree that if you live near a school then you should expect busy periods however we used to live near a primary school and I didn't expect my driveway to be blocked or even parked in. Nor was I prepared to parents to park on junctions literally causing accidents because they weren't prepared to walk 2 mins and park further down the road.

Some of the parking/driving that goes on is shocking though - it would piss me off madly.

My old school used to have a long drive to set it back behind the houses on the street - we regularly had parents parking completely over the access drive (god help us if there was a fire), we had parents parking across the drives of local residents, we had parents parking blocking the alternative staff carpark gates (not fun for the TAs who left school close to the bell), we had parents not bothering to park at all and just leaving their cars in the middle of the road. It resembled something off Wacky Races (but without the pigeon) on many occasions. I've nearly been knocked over, and we had a child hit by a car and thankfully only slightly hurt.

At that point the head tried to negotiate with the local supermarket at the end of the road (so 5 minutes away if that) to use their carpark for parents to park in and walk down the street with their kids to reduce some of the ridiculousness going on outside the gate. The result of this letter - I got sworn at for 10 minutes by one kid in my class's parent (oh how I love being sworn at for decisions taken by SMT).

The trouble is - most of these schools were built before the massive expansion in car ownership. It's a problem for parents, it's also a problem for staff because the carparks can't deal with the sheer number of cars required to fit in them these days (with the numbers of TAs and support staff in addition to teachers and external agencies visiting) - so you'll often see primary school carparks packed three or even more deep during school days. When the schools were built, you went to your local school and you generally walked, so yes, if you're an older person and bought a house next to a school - you might reasonably have expected a stream of kids and parents walking past twice a day... but these days it's more of a demolition derby with mahoosively large cars, and these residential roads can't cope.

Incidentally another school I worked at had to put a minimum arrival time on parents as some were showing up at 2.30 in the afternoon to "dibs" a space for the 3.30 pickup!

One very local school to us piggybacks the local Tesco carpark at the rear of the school to stop the mayhem on the main street - means no parents need to park on the street at all, they all park in Tesco and go into the school grounds through a gate that's locked as morning registration starts. It's a much better solution. Granted you do still get the odd few ignoring it, and the ensuing complaints meaning a reminder letter has to go out a couple of times a year - but seriously, the mess I've seen outside some schools at hometime is insane.

YABU.... My parents have lived close to a school for 27 years. In the past, more children walked there but now more arrive by car. Most people park considerately but many don't, blocking driveways, blocking roads.. and can be extremely hostile into the bargain. As a result, the school has now had to bring in an exclusion zone close to the school, traffic calming measures and the police patrol each morning.

A few people spoil it for everyone else. Don't blame residents.

Pinkie - we should walk - what 6 miles? YANBU if you buy a house by a school it's part of the course however I have seen some pretty appalling and dangerous parking by parents!

My house is right in front of probably the best private pre-school in the local area - DS goes there and it takes me 2 minutes to walk him.

My problem with this isn't so much the parking, but the speed at which the parents drive through our village to get to and from said preschool. Sometimes it at 60mph plus on the long straight stretch of road leading to the school, and it is very dangerous on narrow country lanes.

The school issues a newsletter once in a while to advise that they drive slowly but it never changes. It's just a matter of time before someone in their 4x4 mows a child down on that road.

And they never let anyone pass - just shove you out of the way in their mahoosive petrol-guzzlers!

Dinah I'm not saying you shouldn't drive - do whatever you need to do, given your individual circumstances, and let parents and children do the same! If my kids went to the local school a mile away of course I'd make them walk - but they don't, and MY GOD do they have to carry alot of stuff some days. Rucksack full of heavy books, packed lunch games kit, musical instruments - it's not just teachers who have heavy stuff!

well on both sides surely if you are in catchment for the school they you shouldnt be driving but walking instead? and equally dont buy a house near a school if you are worried about parking or noisy children?

anyone?

Chil - I agree that a few parents park very inconsiderately/drive too fast etc, but I've seen this from both sides - they often don't have a choice about where to park frankly, and they often don't have much of a practical choice about whether or not to drive there at all. Some residents get very shirty at having their road over-run for twenty mins twice a day, but frankly it's tough. The same as it is for people who buy houses near stations, or shops. If it's not a private road and the council haven't imposed entry restrictions then it is probably illegal to impose an exclusion area on people who have paid their road tax. People would be quite within their rights to refuse to adhere to it.

a) You shouldn't pick up by car
b) The letter is just a sop to the residents, they have no way to compel you it's just an attempt at community relations. If the residents really want to stop you they need to campaign for a cpz.

I can see this from both sides.

If you buy a house near a school you have to accept that you will get a lot of traffic between 8.30-9.30 and 2.45-3.30. That's a fact.

BUT having lived almost next door to a school in our last house it made me to have our driveway parked in and blocked. At the time I worked and used to drive straight into my drive and run to school with about 30 seconds to spare so if some idiot was parked in my drive it made me late.

Our school has a staff only car park but a pub about 300 yards away allows parents to use that every day. Yet very few park there. Most park closer on the entrance markings and yellow lines.

I don't think that the 'we haven't got any choice' argument really holds for dangerous, illegal and inconsiderate parking. There really is no excuse for it.

I usually drive to drop DS off and pick him up because it's a 4 mile round trip (5 miles when I'm dropping DS2 off at nursery too). I work at home so I can't really afford to take 1.5 hours for the school run twice a day. I drop DS off on the main road and let him walk the 5 mins to school. When I pick him up, I park in a public parking bay on the main road that's at most 3 minutes from school and then walk through all the chaos and bad parking to get him. I'm always the only car in the whole bay.

I really don't see how the parents I walk past sitting in their cars parked on the pavement where there are double yellow lines think what they're doing is in any way acceptable. It wouldn't kill them to park further away (not even far away) and walk.

No of course Damsel - I wasn't trying to defend that. But some residents think our mere existence in their road is inconsiderate. We have a woman who lives near our school who regularly comes out of her house to shout at people who park (perfectly legally) opposite it. I have seen her stand in the space so that people can't park in it, and I have seen her tell people quite forcefully to move because she is expecting a visitor.

She has bought a house with no driveway, in a town centre, between a school, and a hospital outpatients clinic, both of which have been there for a about a hundred years. If ever stands in the space when I need it I'll call the police on her.

"I don't think that the 'we haven't got any choice' argument really holds for dangerous, illegal and inconsiderate parking. There really is no excuse for it."

Totally agree with that. If I lived close to a school parents parking considerately/legally wouldn't bother me, parents parking inconsiderately/illegally would. I don't see why anyone should have to put up with the latter.

My parents live opposite a primary school and a secondary school and its total chaos at dropping off/picking up times.
Yes they expect a few more cars etc but the road is literally blocked up everyday, cos people just dont use common sense and let people through etc. If my parents wanted to go out between them hours it'll probably take them 10mins just to get out of their driveway!
They've had endless occasions where people have blocked their driveway, the ones who stay in their car waiting are not so bad at least you can ask them to move, its the ones who actually park up block it and walk away, its just not on really.
They've now put in resident parking, a scheme my parents didnt want as it made things worse. The parents still park there and they very rarely see a warden coming down to check, its just made it more hassle for me and other visitors to park outside the house,unless we put a voucher on the car..at my parents expense!

YANBU

As long as parking is legal (i.e. not blocking drives or junctions), I don't see what right they have to complain. I live between a university and a high school. Our biggest problem is that the continued expansion of the university makes no provision for the parking of the students they are trying to attract, so they park in the surrounding residential areas.

This can be a pita for us, but generally works out, as all the residents are out at work in the day and the students have gone when they get home. Would rather just live with that than go with the council's plan to make residents pay for permits, and students pay by meter. Ideally though, the university would stop hiding behind some false eco credentials and just provide for the students they're working so hard to attract. Sorry, rant over.

haven't had a chance to read the whole thread but my parents used to live in a cul de sac oppos a school. every day without fail someone would park across the entrance to their driveway. i witnessed it on a number of times and was stunned by the selfishness and sheer laziness of those parents.

the surrounding roads had a lot of space for parking so this really was being hugely inconsiderate.

OP, perhaps the letters are aimed at those who park particularly badly and with no consideration to others, but obviously the letters have to go to everyone?

It would be lovely to get the children into the catchment area school I would walk rain or shine - sadly for some of us this isn't possible and a 6 mile drive to school is the only option