A mum is fearing for her family’s safety due to ‘terrifying’ and ‘dangerous’ parking at a Huddersfield school.
She is frightened because she has to have to walk with a pram in the middle of the road.
Oakes resident, Jodie Donegan, believes that a failure to provide sufficient safe drop off parking spots despite an increase in pupils at Reinwood Community Junior and Nursery and Infants Schools this September could be to blame for increased safety concerns.
Jodie, 28, who takes and picks up her eight-year-old son, Harry and five-year-old daughter, Darcy, with their four-month-old brother, Archie, on foot every day, said that she now thinks it will only be a matter of time before someone gets hurt.
Jodie, who lives in Weymouth Avenue, said: “Dangerous parking has been going on for years but since this September, when the school took on more pupils, it’s got so much worse.
“Parents double park, park on yellow lines and park by signs that say ‘do not park here’. And my parents even have drivers blocking their driveways-it’s horrendous.
“They make the pavements so narrow and it’s impossible for us to get on the path with a small pram due, so we are being forced to walk in the road.
“We end up right in the middle of it because the badly parked cars block the view around the street’s bend. It’s very difficult to see what’s coming.
“It’s terrifying and has left me fuming that there are so many people who show no respect for walking families like us due to their dangerous parking.”
She has contacted both the school, which this September let in 31 more children across both sites, and Kirklees Council regarding the safety issue but said that she has not yet got anywhere.
Jodie, said: “The school sends out letters about it but it’s just not working and I’ve asked them what else they can do. The staff need to have a meeting with parents and residents to make plans. The council has been sending out wardens but they don’t resolve the issues-people will park sensibly the day they are there but then as soon as they go it just returns to normal.
“I think if they turned the patch of disused land in Willwood Avenue into a drop-off zone and create a one-way system for parents it could help-something must be done.”
Kirklees Council’s head of area working and safety, Cath Bottomley, has now pledged to consider more options to tackle the problem, which she said was becoming more common.
She said: “The council has worked with many schools to try and help address the difficult problem of illegal, inconsiderate and unsafe parking.
“Neither the Council or the Reinwood schools are in a position to purchase additional land to provide parking for parents – but we can work together to identify local car parks where we may be able to broker permission for parents “park and stride” with their children to school.
“However we strongly believe that the only way to resolve this problem long term is if the minority of parents who are responsible, put their own convenience to one side and take the time to consider the impact of their actions on other people and the safety of their own and other children.
“We would like to remind all parents that it is illegal to park on school zig zags, yellow lines, across someone’s drive or access, or to cause an obstruction to pedestrians, local residents, school buses or an emergency vehicles.”
It is the latest example of several school and nursery parking fears in the area, which also includes the road outside Little Angels Day Nursery in Lowerhouses Lane, where a mum and toddler were struck by an SUV on Tuesday evening and the ongoing dispute between parents of children at Fixby Junior School and nearby residents.
