‘Extra pupils will add to traffic woes’

Parking around a popular village primary school has been branded “chaotic and dangerous” ahead of plans to increase its pupil numbers by a quarter.

Opponents have hit out at a £350,000 project to expand Wickhambreax primary, with the local parish council leading the fight to block it.

It claims the school is already at capacity and increasing its size from 105 pupils to up to 134 will only worsen the traffic chaos already blighting the lives of villagers and school run parents.

In a strongly-worded objection to the county council it says: “The majority of pupils at the school come from outside the village and most rely entirely on the use of a car.

“The arrangements for collecting pupils are far less than satisfactory and involves a crowded gathering of parents, some with pre-school children, in an extremely narrow road, without pavements and lined with parked cars.

“After collecting their children, parents manoeuvre them out or drive through the crowd. This chaotic, dangerous daily event also involves non-school vehicles needing to drive through the crowd.

“To add at least another 30 children to this mix with a resulting increase in cars is totally unacceptable and irresponsible.

“The situation is not new and not caused solely by the school but it has deteriorated greatly and now poses a serious and insurmountable problem.”

Wickhambreaux parish council’s concerns over parking are shared by many villagers and the local pub, The Rose Inn.

But neighbouring Littlebourne parish council centres its objections to the plans on something else entirely.

It says £180,000 earmarked for the extension should instead be spent on the under-subscribed Littlebourne primary, which still has room for 30 more pupils.

The money comes from developers building almost 90 homes on nearby farmland between The Hill and Jubilee Road.

Parish council chairman Mike Gallagher says it is illogical to spend the money in Wickhambreaux while there is room to expand at Littlebourne.

“We naturally thought the developer contribution to education would go to our local school, but this is just a slap in the face,” he said.

“We have nothing against Wickhambreaux school, but it seems madness that children could be driven past our village school to be taken to there, increasing traffic at a time we are supposed to be discouraging unnecessary car journeys.”

In a joint statement from Wickhambreaux and Littlebourne primary schools, bosses say the Wickhambreaux expansion will be phased, with no more than 29 new pupils over eight years.

They add that Wickhambreaux – which is rated ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted – needs to increase its class size to satisfy demand from surrounding villages.

“The development of houses in the wider area of both these schools will require additional spaces in all Canterbury schools in the near future,” it says.

“The contribution towards Wickhambreaux school’s expansion by the builders of these new homes is for a specific project.

“It is not a ‘cash advance’, and if this project was not to go ahead, the money would go to other projects in the Canterbury area.”

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The school run traffic in Wickhambreaux