St. Margaret's School Parking

[rosegriffin]

On 5th February the following questions were raised at our public meeting:

Questions about parking at St. Margaret’s School (form Ilfracombe Avenue and other residents concerned about child safety

Question – Why has nothing been done about the continued parking violations, over many years, committed by parents collecting and leaving children at St. Margaret’s school? Access to homes in Ilfrcombe Avenue and at times London Road are often blocked and there is a serious risk that an accident might occur. What is happening – will the school/diocese create a car park on their land? Has anyone been fined for parking illegally? Is there anything that you can do to move this matter forward?

Question - St. Margaret's is a voluntary aided Church of England school and it takes a lot of Christian children from outside the area. Should it be allowed to continue to take children from outside the area if it is not making any parking facility available on the land it owns?


The response from Basildon Council is in the next thread below and Rose Griffin's response to Basildon Council is below that.

[rosegriffin]

Sent: 11/02/2014 11:03 GMT
To: Cllr Tony Ball
Cc: # Members Support;
Subject: Bowers Gifford Residents Association.

Dear Cllr Ball

With reference to the questions below, which were raised at your recent
meeting with the Bowers Gifford Residents Association.

I can confirm that I have received the following response below from the
South Essex Parking Partnership in relation to Question 4.

I am still looking into questions 1 & 3, and as soon as I have obtained the
relevant information I will advise you accordingly.
Kind regards

Jackie


“SEPP is aware of the issues caused by vehicles parking to drop off and
collect children attending St Margaret's school. We attend as often as our
resource allows but we have 46 schools within the area we enforce so it is
a matter is a spreading our resource as fairly and as wide as possible.
Some schools are more problematic than others so we ensure a higher
attendance at these schools and St Margaret's is one of these schools.

Like most schools when we do attend the compliance rate is a lot higher and
as the majority of the vehicles have the driver in waiting most of them are
driven away when the officers approach. This is sufficient as our job has
been achieved, however, it does mean there are very little PCN’s issued on
foot patrols at school for this reason. At this school many of the vehicles
are moved to Ilfracombe Avenue where there are no restrictions so we are
unable to enforce anyway.

Working in partnership with the Bowers Gifford residents association we
found out that in this road much of the problem was caused by parking
across dropped footways, however, when we asked the residents to sign up to
the Private Residents Enforcement of Dropped Access Scheme (PREDAS) only
one resident registered so the scheme was dropped.

I will at this point arrange a purge of the location, however, people
should be aware that, from my experience, no matter how many times we
attend or how many PCN’s we issue the problem does not stop as the parents
have no option but to return each day. It is more a matter of trying to
educate people into doing the right thing.”

Kind regards,

Russell Panter
South East Team Leader
South Essex Parking Partnership
Barleylands Depot Office
Tel: [phone] Mob: [phone] Fax: [phone]
[e-mail]

[rosegriffin]

Rose's response to the above:

Dear Tony

Thank you for your prompt response and for looking into this matter which I appreciate is an ECC and diocese matter.

I copy my response to our ward, county and parish councillors to ensure continuity.

First of all Russell Panter appears to be confusing the Residents
Association with the parish council. The Residents Association (RA) has
not previously been involved as the parish council was dealing with the
matter. As you are aware the matter has been left in abeyance and residents
have asked the RA to become involved. I think that the number of people who
came along to voice their concerns expresses the seriousness with which the
car parking issue is taken.

I must reiterate that it is NOT local people who are causing the problem.

The issue is that the school takes a high number of children from outside
the area - at one time it was taking children from as far away as Grays.
Obviously if there is a need to bring children in by car then there is a
need for parking BUT there is no parking facility available. Rudeness, foul
language, rubbish dumping, dangerous parking and illegal parking are all
symptoms of an outside, and long term, problem effecting our residents.
Whilst some fines would be welcome to stop repeat parking offenders,
penalties are not the long term answer.

The school playing field apparently belongs to the local authority. The
school is not allowed to use its education funds to turn part of the playing
field (belonging to the local authority) into a car park. Some local
parents do not want to lose part of the playing field. However, other
residents have offered to fundraise to turn some of this space into a car
park. Ms. Mosheni, who owns the Gun, has offered her support to any
fundraising campaign.

The field between the school and the care home belongs to the diocese. The
diocese, via one of its governors has informed that it cannot afford to turn
part of the field it owns into a car park. This is hard for most of us to
believe. Nevertheless, the same fundraising offer is available. Should the
diocese wish to take advantage of the fact that its land is now being
considered within tier 1 development we would ask that priority be given to
providing parking facilities for the school before building houses.

One other alternative was dispensing with the London Road cycle lane, which
is hardly used, and widening the road to facilitate parked cars without
reducing it to one lane traffic. This would ease part of the problem.

Another alternative might be to put a pavement on the school side of Church
Road to allow parents to park along that road, which is a much quieter road,
than the London Road. Church Road could also be widened to facilitate
parking. At the moment the pavement along Church Road stops before it
reaches London Road and is therefore not entirely safe for use by children.

Please would the council consider the above options and put them forward to
the appropriate bodies?

Regards,

Rose Griffin
Chair
Bowers Gifford & North Benfleet Residents Association
www.bowersgifford.info

[rosegriffin]

Minutes of the 5th February Meeting will be on our website shortly. There is a separate minute regarding the St. Margaret's parking issue.

[rosegriffin]

Please note that I am currently following up with Melissa McGeorge, our Essex County Councillor.

Miss McGeorge states that she was not handed any notes regarding St. Margaret's by her predecessor. It is so important to keep minutes of meetings. The minutes of the REsidents Association 5th February meeting will be on our website shortly. I am still trying to locate any minutes of previous meetings between the parish council, school governor, headteacher, ECC Councillor (then Sandra Hillier)but without success.

Please note that the parking issue will be on the Parish Council agenda again on 26th February. The Residents Association was set up specifically to deal with the application to build on Little Chalvedon Hall Farm but has lent itself to a wider remit over the past during its 20 month existence. The parking at St.Margaret's issue is more appropriately dealt with by the parish council, Essex County Council and the diocese.