Action demanded on school parking

Residents are demanding action to solve parking problems outside a Cannock school, blaming inconsiderate parents for blocking their drives when they drop off their children.

There have been complaints about parents parking on single yellow lines, blocking drives and straddling pavements with their vehicles outside St Mary's School, in Hunter Road. The situation is being made worse by cars speeding round a blind bend and through the road, narrowed by vehicles parked on both sides.

Nearby St Mary's Catholic Church has helped by allowing public access to its car park but residents claim the spaces have been seized by workers leaving their cars in bays for the whole day.

Jenny Taylor, who lives on Hunter Road, has to get up at 7am and park her vehicle outside her house if she wants to go out in the morning. If she leaves it in her driveway her car is blocked in.

She said: "These drivers are totally inconsiderate the way they park. They don't just park up, they park the car then they sit in it. Then they take their children into the school and spend half-an-hour chatting."

Cannock South ward councillor John Kraujalis said he would be liaising with the school to see if anything could be done to solve the problem.

He said: "I have sympathy with both sides. Some parents do live further away from the school and it is not always possible to walk their children to school. But certainly some parents are not being thoughtful at all to residents by blocking their driveways."

School headteacher Stephen Breeze said: "In the past we have introduced a walking bus scheme encouraging children to walk to school."

Mr Breeze said he had asked Cannock Council to introduce a badge scheme allowing parents free use of a nearby car park."