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Five-year
warning of school-run end
• Councillor Gerry Harrison’s outburst against independent
schools and their alleged lack of co-operation about school
runs is so extreme and wide of the mark as to merit a balanced
factual response (Jamies knives out over school-run clampdown,
Feb 23).
Heads and their representatives do talk to each other. Regular
meetings have taken place for 12 years. Local independent schools
have all completed School Travel Plans. Like the majority of
independent schools in the area, The Hall School is a Charitable
Trust and is not allowed to ‘grab money’.
The Hall supports cycling, the use of scooters and walk to school
days. It has a dedicated School Travel Plan co-ordinator. It
monitors poor parking and has a name and shame policy, issues
regular bulletins to parents and has a Camden Approved School
Travel Plan.
In 1998 The Hall introduced an earlier start to the day in order
to reduce congestion in the area.
This is what we have done but what about Camden? The council’s
responsibilities are clearly defined under the 1984 Road Traffic
Act. What are the alternative transport measures?
Cllr Harrison would do well to consider what he, as a councillor,
might do to address this situation.
Paul Ramage
Headmaster, The Hall School
Crossfield Road, NW3
• Ewan McGregor, Jamie Oliver, other celebs and other
mostly private-school parents are worried they won’t be
able to park anywhere they please without getting a parking
ticket on the school run.
My advice is don’t worry. You have nothing to fear.
Has anyone ever seen a traffic warden give a ticket to an illegally
parked car around a school, whether parked in a resident bay
for over 20 minutes, on the pavement, on yellow or double yellow
lines, in bus lanes, or on zebra crossings?
I have questioned wardens why they don’t go around to schools
during the school-run times, and they answer they are ordered
not to.
Each week you publish stories and letters of pensioners, disabled
people, doctors, midwives,volunteer workers, etc who have received
unfairly issued tickets. I don’t remember an aggrieved
school-run parent story or letter of complaint. The fact is
that Camden has given carte blanche to the school run, and despite
their words their actions, or rather inactions say much more.
The reality is that the permits are irrelevant, and until Camden
actually decides to enforce parking regulations around schools,
all these poor victimised parents can sleep soundly.
It is interesting to note that true blue Kensington and Chelsea
allows two minutes to pick up or drop off children.
Labour Camden allows parents, most of whose children attend
private schools, to park anywhere for as long as they like.
Ironically a high percentage of these come from K&C.
OWEN ROSSAN
Address supplied
• As a one-time member of Camden Council’s Scrutiny
Panel on the school run, I was interested in your report of
protests against the policy of phased withdrawal of special
parking dispensations for parents.
These special dispensations do not exist in other boroughs.
When the Panel took evidence in 2001-2002 there were strong
calls from residents to abolish them at once.
However, the Panel, and later Camden’s Executive, were
mindful that an abrupt change in policy could create problems.
This is why they took up a suggestion from the Belsize Residents
Association and the Heath and Hampstead Society that the withdrawal
should be over five years.
The intention was that junior pupils currently at ‘dispensation’
schools could complete that phase of their education, but that
parents of children not yet at school could make their choices
in the full knowledge that special privileges for school-run
parking were not going to go on for ever.
The new policy was decided in 2002. From looking at your picture
of children outside St Mary’s School, it is pretty clear
that many of them were toddlers or even babes in arms at that
time. It would appear therefore, either that some schools have
been less than forthcoming to prospective parents about changes
in policy – or parents have known what to expect and paid
no attention. In either case, there is no reason for deviating
from the fair and carefully thought out policy of gradual change.
Aileen Hammond
Garden Flat
Haverstock Hill, NW3
• My wife and I live in Crossfield Road where the Hall
School has two establishments for boys aged 8 to 10 and 11 to
13.
There are problems every afternoon, and increasingly in
the evenings with the expansion of the school’s extra-curricular
activities, with parents obstructing access to our drive and
garage.
While most parents, or the drivers they employ, wait in their
vehicle, there is an inconsiderate minority who disappear so
they cannot move their vehicles if we need access.
Recently we were disturbed at 10pm by a parent parking in our
drive with the headlights left blazing full on and the engine
running while he was waiting to collect his 10-year-old son
from a theatre outing organised by the school.
While the majority of parents seem to want to use their vehicles,
I do have some sympathy with those who are forced to by the
amount of sports equipment and musical instruments to be transported
for all the activities encouraged by the school.
The Governors are appealing Camden Council’s rejection
of its application for an underground swimming pool. This is
despite a lot of parents thinking it an unnecessary luxury,
the opposition of Belsize Residents Association, and of 62 letters
from neighbours only one in favour; the year-long construction
and of course the inevitable increase in traffic congestion.
Antony Kay
Crossfield Road, NW3
• I was rendered speechless on reading about the new
School Travel Action Group which is demanding that the council
provide free parking for those who want to drive their children
to school.
There is no school in Camden that is not accessible using
public transport and the buses are now free for school children.
If parents insist on driving their children to school why can’t
they pay to park in a non-residents parking bay?
I am also shocked that these (mainly private) schools are campaigning
against the needs of their community. Instead they should spend
their time finding out how to improve the lives of local people
who cannot even afford a car.
Penelope Gibbs
Lawford Road, NW5 |
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