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School-run traffic causes ‘gridlock’
SQUABBLES at the school gates are usually broken up by the grown-ups.
But the mounting row over school-run parking in Hampstead has dragged in headteachers, parents’ groups and residents, who put their cases to council policy-makers at the Town Hall on Thursday.
Parents, teachers and governors at Hampstead’s private junior schools are lobbying hard for the right to park their cars legally while delivering and collecting children.
They have called for all parents to be given parking permits to avert what Deirdre Berkery, head of Broadhurst School in Greencroft Gardens, called “the anxiety communicated by the parent to the child which makes them reluctant to go to school”.
A report by the vocal Schools Travel Action Group argued that a policy of allocating permits had been ineffective as a means of controlling traffic and parking levels around schools.
But the five-year-old policy of issuing fewer parking permits every year was defended by residents and some of Camden’s state school representatives. Residents, especially around Heath Street and Fitzjohn’s Avenue, where there are 11 primary schools, said they were plagued by home-time “gridlock”.
Siobhan Ezra, of Redington Frognal Association, called on councillors to “fulfill their promises and not change them simply because they are blackmailed by a belligerent and well-organised interest group”.
The council has agreed to extend the consultation period on school-run parking policy to six weeks. A final decision on the policy will be made in May. |
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