Parents angry at lack of parking spaces at newly-formed Saughall All Saints Primary School

Dec 3 2009 by Ben Coulbeck, Chester Chronicle

ANGRY parents have spoken out about a lack of parking facilities at a newly-formed primary school.

They claim that the school run has become fraught with danger as they attempt to take their children to Saughall All Saints Primary.

Police cones have apparently been placed along residential streets and it is alleged shop keepers are threatening to take action if parents continue to park outside their premises.

The £5m Saughall All Saints School was built after it was announced that the former Thomas Wedge Junior School and The Ridings Infants School were to amalgamate.

Concerned parent Nicola Braithwaite said: “There is absolutely no parking at all for parents. It has got to a point now where the local shop keeper is taking people’s registration number and threatening to get people clamped.

“This new school has opened but it’s been overshadowed by this. It’s absolute chaos.

“The school is trying to force everyone to walk but sometimes that is just not possible.

“If you have more than one child and one of them is poorly, you need to be able to just drop your child off at the gate.

“Also some parents do not live in Saughall and need to drop off their children on the way to work.”

But the criticism is not shared across the village as many also feel parents are being “lazy”.

Saughall and Shotwick Park Parish Council chairman Jenny Young said: “That group of parents are in the minority.

“We had a funeral in the village attended by 250 and there were no traffic or parking problems.

“The parents are being pedantic, they want to park as close to the school as possible so they can just run in and out. Well it’s not going to happen.”