To even consider buying a beautiful house on the same road as a school?

[GinDaddy]

Just that, really -

Have seen a gorgeous house become available; period, driveway (with marked “no parking” white lines from council) , right amount of bedrooms, short walking distance to town which is important to my other half.

The only snag? It’s four doors down from a local primary school, on the other side of the road.

We’ve been looking for this kind of house in the catchment for over two years now. Both of us keep wondering, “will my driveway be parked over (or even on?!), will I be blocked in constantly, will unreasonable behaviour be a daily occurence”?

Am trying to think of a way of not outing myself or yourself but very curious now of course

Ask CurtainsOpen to pm you the link to the house she is referring to or to say the general area.

Funnily enough there is a lovely house for sale up the road from me, but its a few doors down also on the opposite side from a school. Its a welsh school so there is a lot of outside (from the village) traffic at school pick up times would really put me off as parking is a nightmare.

As pps have said, it really depends on your own schedule. I've lived within 200m of both a primary and secondary school for the past 12 years, and can't say I've really been bothered by CF parking. I can see it happens, but it didn't affect me when my DC were younger as I'd be walking to collect them, and over the years it became second nature to avoid driving during Manic Hour, or to allow extra time if that wasn't possible.

We used to live by a primary school - was a parking nightmare for 20 mins in the morning at drop off time and 20 mins in the afternoon around pick up.

So really no bother at all.

If you love the house I would go for it!

See I work full time office hours so it wouldn’t bother me 9 times out of 10 as I’d be at work most of the pick up and drop off times but it would probably annoy me on my days off lol

Depends. We bought a house right by a school when we didn’t have kids and wondered what it would be like and it’s lovely. Lovely to see the kids coming and going, lovely community feel, lovely to have children living on the street. I WFH too and love hearing the kids playing at break time. The catchment for our school is so small that most parents walk their kids to school. There’s 15 mins In the morning when the streets busy and 15 in the afternoon so I time going anywhere in the car to avoid those tunes and it’s really not an issue for us.

Yes, you are crazy 🤦‍♀️. The NOISE! That is before I get to the parking. You will have no peace in your own garden and won’t be able to get in and out of your drive regularly. If you are a very patient, laid back person, go ahead. But nothing would persuade me to buy next to a school.

If I know I'm going to need to drive out my driveway in the morning I go and put the car on the road early. I have never actually had anyone block me in but it just seems easier. Driving out across the pavement is stressful enough when all the kids are going to and fro.
The noise doesn't bother me. I like hearing the kids outside.
Often the lights are left on in the school all night. I don't know why. This pisses me off more than anything else. I look out my window and there is a massive illuminated school. The lights were on all of the Christmas holidays.

If it was me, I’d buy it and factor in buying a cheap as chips second hand car too. Then park it across your own driveway. That way, you always have access. Move it when you need to. Problem sorted.

genius, classic Mumsnet answer. And a total crackers one at that. Yeah, deffo factor in an extra car to leave across your driveway and then spend all your time moving it around to unblock your driveway to move the car that you ctually drive
That’s not a mad suggestion at all.

It depends on your own schedule. If you leave home before school run time, you won't notice it. If you leave afterwards you can probably ignore the congestion. If you need to be coming off your drive at e.g. 8.45am every morning, you'll struggle. Same with pick-up time, except the cars will be there longer as people often get there early.

Go and observe drop off and pick up times, especially when it’s raining.

The other thing that would really annoy me (but you may not be so bothered by) is that school grounds are non-smoking zones, so you may find staff will be smoking right outside your house every day at break-times.

The nuisance is half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the afternoon and noise of dc at breaks and lunch plus some events such as sports day, fetes and school plays, but it will be silent in the evening and weekends and in the holidays.

It really depends on the school.

Our last house the primary school was at the top of the road, however the actual road the school was on doesn't have houses (they are all in little off-shoot roads, so no drives actually leading onto the road, that didn't cause us too many problems, other than the occasional CF who would park in such a way that meant that it was very difficult to turn into the road. The road that runs up the side of the school does have more parking issues though.

We now live near the secondary school, it has a proper drop-off point in the school though so parked cars are not an issue, but traffic builds up at the lights to get out of the road and this can be difficult to get into, I try to leave before the main rush but not always, and it is always worse in the bad weather. tbh it is the children walking in the road that is the biggest issue - teenagers have a death wish about them.

However the nearby primary schools are always being moaned about on the local facebook groups as they get lots of 'I'll only be a minute'

You need to judge it on that school really.

Depends on your own schedule doesn't it? I had friends who lived opposite a school but worked shifts. Definitely not the place to be to sleep during the day!

Really depends on the school. We used to live near a school. Most of the kids walked, it had a small catchment area. The street was busy for 5 minutes.
The actual school my ds went to was a fucking nightmare. Cars parked either side of the street leaving no room to actually get down the street, people parked over drives, complete traffic jam for 40 minutes. I used to think what a nightmare it would be to live on that street.

Check out any activities held in the school in holiday times.

We live on the access road to the primary school and it's madness in the morning and afternoon in term time. Plus on a Wednesday at 6.30ish as a popular club finishes

However in the holidays it's a nightmare as there are two or three activity camps that hire the building or grounds. Often they have morning and afternoon sessions so you have at least four busy periods a day. It's much harder to time missing the parking issues. Plus not all the kids go to that school and their parents are much less bothered about not being CF's with parking as it's only for a week or two.

Has anyone suggested knocking on the neighbours' doors and asking them how it is? A useful opportunity to see who you might be living next to, as well! You might be more put off by them than the school. Seriously, hope you are happy with your eventual choice, OP.

I live in a house identical to your description OP. 99% of families who attend the school are wonderful and don't park illegally. 0.99% will take the occasional chance and one fucker one time blocked my drive for hours on end.

I would go for it!

Everyone saying that there's holidays, yes but actually possibly not, the school opposite mennow runs summer school and Easter and half term activities so there's no break. Also clubs after school everyday as breakfast club. When I moved in 10 years ago I was literally only inconvenienced for 40 minutes twice a day, now drop offs start at 7:30 and end at 9:20, people will park over my drive the whole time during this time and again between 3 and 6pm so don't assume that timings won't extend. I wouldn't move as I'm close to a station and it gets me into a good school catchment and I leave the car over the drive most the time.

If you ever need to leave the house before school starts and during kickout (this is the worst usually) then you'll be increasingly frustrated and end up shouting at people in the street.
If you are happy to leave your drive outside of these times it'll be fine.

I have a large primary school with an out of school facility behind me. We have long private drives so parking is not a problem. It causes me no problems whatsoever

I understand your desire to have a beautiful home. There are lots of them on the market all over the world, I would not go for the one you have seen, because;

Buying a house next to or near to a school is not a good idea there will be allot of noise during, before and after school hours 5 days a week which can be stressful to deal with if you or someone else living in the house is trying to relax and you need to think about all the members of your family they might not handle living there well for a whole variety of reasons.

Someone might park at the bottom of your driveway if there is not enough parking spaces which might be difficult to deal with.

I would consider moving to another country if all the houses for sale in the current country I live in were not for me I can keep in contact with people via the internet or through letter writing.

Not read it all, but bear in mind that parents evenings, school discos, award ceremony’s (once a week at ours) all create traffic issues in addition to drop off and pick up. Also check the school doesn’t contain a Childrens Centre. Many do which means lots of visitors throughout the daytime too

I live a few doors down from a primary school. The only irritation is small children climbing on and walking along the front wall/running up the sloped path. The traffic is negligible. Breakfast club starts at 7.30am with a few children walking up, main kick out is just after 3, after school club kicks out after 5pm. Still not noticed much in the way of cars.

The only problem is when the catering lorry does deliveries, as the road is very narrow and those things are huge - when somebody unconnected to the school parks like a dick, it can take 10 minutes of the lorry driver carefully manoeuvering and blocking the road in the process.

I'd only be bothered by a secondary school if I were home between 2 and 5 for the noise and litter of the majority of kids leaving. Events aren't that frequent, usually 3 shows, a few parents' evenings, plus a couple of prizegivings - and they usually allow parents to park on the grounds for those. Or if it's one that lets out the premises at the weekend to churches - as they seem to be completely oblivious to all regulations on amplified noise, parking and not yelling to one another. Kids yelling and swearing is all very well in the context of a football game on the field or on their way home, but 120dB of Christian Rock at 11am Sunday, followed by a 3 hour dedication ceremony party and then a 5 - 8.30pm repeat for the True Believers is not anything I would ever want to be subjected to.

A small Primary, though - no problem.

Park a Scherman tank in your driveway.
If a car parks over your drive, squash it.

I would just go into it with the mindset that for 20 minutes, twice a day, my drive will be totally inaccessible. I think if you assume you’re going to get blocked in or out and those times of day are not crucial to you then you’ll feel less angry when you inevitably do get blocked in.