Parents speak of pain outside Peterborough school branded worst for parking

Parking enforcement officers have handed out 67 penalty charge notices at Queen’s Drive Infant School since last April - more than outside any other school.

And one enforcement officer, Katrina Starbuck, said the school in Queen’s Drive West, near Central Park, has the worst parking problems that she has witnessed across the city.

Katrina, an officer in the SaferPeterborough Prevention and Enforcement Service (PES), said: “It’s just the amount of cars that stop wherever they want with no consideration for anybody else.”

School headteacher Sarah Skinner added: “Parents parking their cars badly outside our school is a big problem.

“I fear it is only a matter of time before a pupil is seriously hurt due to this irresponsible and dangerous parking.”

PES officers have carried out more than 680 school visits across the city over the past year and issued around 200 penalty charge notices since April 2016.

Fines can be £50 or £70 although these are halved if paid within 14 days.

PES officers have been visiting Queen’s Drive the most, followed by Arthur Mellows Village College in Glinton, Discovery Primary School in Walton and Paston Ridings Primary School in Paston.

The Peterborough Telegraph visited Queen’s Drive yesterday morning (Wednesday, February 15) to speak to parents.

Ambreen Aslam, who takes her six-year-old son Sufyan Asghar into school from Dogsthorpe, said she arrives half-an-hour early both in the morning and afternoon to find a parking space.

She added: “Parking here is dreadful. It’s extremely dangerous and something needs to be done. It’s not safe for the children. You need to get children to school on time, so what are we supposed to do? It’s hard for the school as well.”

Fernanda Santos was with seven-year-old son William.

She said: “Sometimes they park here on yellow lines. I think it’s manageable now but it used to be a lot worse.”

Shabana Rafiq said: “It’s horrible. I’ve been given a few tickets but where can you park? And you can’t be late because you have to go and see the head teacher.”

Another parent described the situation as “chaos.”

Yesterday, parking enforcement officer Katrina Starbuck was highly visible standing in a blue uniform by resident parking spaces opposite the school.

But parents continually tried to park in the residents’ spaces without a permit, and they were forced to move despite saying they would be in-and-out of the school quickly.

One car was also parked in the middle of the road, adding to the traffic problems.

Katrina said issuing parking tickets was a last resort after telling parents they could park elsewhere, including at Thomas Deacon Academy.

She added: “There have been a couple of occasions when you thought a child was going to get hit by a vehicle.”