Wardens Target Illegal School Parking Amid Safety Fears

Published on: 1 Feb, 2019
Updated on: 3 Feb, 2019

Council traffic warden are working with 30 Guildford schools to help reduce safety concerns over illegal parking at pick-up times, after a successful trial last year.

Some of the Guildford schools where there can be problems caused by cars parking nearby.

Parents and local residents had made many complaints about inconsiderate and unsafe parking around schools, including blocking dropped kerbs and parking on zigzags. Blocking roads endangers those trying to cross them, increasing the risk of accidents.

Matt Furniss, lead councillor for Infrastructure and Governance, said: “We ran a very successful trial with the schools to help educate drivers about the dangers of parking inconsiderately near by. We are now making regular patrols to help keep children and other road-users safe at pick-up time.”

From September 2017 to July 2018, wardens made 454 patrols, asked 2,776 drivers to move on and issued 395 penalty charge notices.

Graham Ellwood, lead councillor for Licensing, Environmental Health and Community Safety, added: “Our team will continue its work outside schools to deter anti-social parking which has dangerous consequences for parents and children.

“Several schools are now working with our Environmental Health team and community wardens on a new project to educate parents and children about how to improve air quality outside schools during drop-off and pick-up times.”

Steve Smith, head of Guildford County School, said: “We are happy to be working with parking enforcement. The Farnham Road is busy and we must ensure the safety of our students at drop-off and pick-up times. We welcome the action to keep our roads safe and clear of illegally parked cars.”

Cllr Angela Goodwin (Lib Dem, Friary & St Nicolas) said: “Although the parking watch has had an effect with enforcement on inappropriate parking around schools, it doesn’t involve the bigger picture.

“Within the town centre, I see families walk their children to and from schools. Air pollution is very high around schools which has a devastating impact on young people’s health, and there are the obvious concerns about road safety.

“We should all be looking at other, long-term measures such setting up “park and stride” schemes, walk-to-school initiatives, a wider bus network and possible road closures, which would place less emphasis on penalising parents using cars for school runs.”

Responses to Wardens Target Illegal School Parking Amid Safety Fears

Raffaella Breare Reply

February 3, 2019 at 11:33 am

Most effort should be aimed at reducing cars on the road for school pick ups and drop offs. I suggest:

1) Give a much-reduced student rate for public transportation. Many other councils (eg Woking) offer a monthly student rate or free public transportation or any public transportation covering all companies that provide public transportation. Currently there is an option of paying, upfront, the individual company, however, this is more expensive than using a car if you have more then one child, if the bus doesn’t show up, or is late, and the parents have to organise different transportation.

2) Review the bus timetable at school times. Many local buses arrive at the main bus station after the bus covering school routes has gone. An example is bus 18, serving Onslow Village. It arrives at the bus station 10 minutes after the bus to Merrow (where many private and public schools are on the route) is departed. Synchronising the bus timetable so that buses from the periphery arrive at the main bus station before buses to school routes depart will make more practical the use of public transportation.

3) Allow buses to pick up and drop off students in a safe place, even if it is not a designated bus stop for the route.

4) Change some bus routes so that can serve more than one school. For example, bus no. 18 only serves George Abbot and there are no stops between the main bus station and George Abbot school. The final stop is inside the school, which is also the first stop for the return journey. Change the route to an existing bus route in Merrow woods, allowing more stops and drop-offs to serve the students going to the primary schools and second nearby schools in this area.