Council action on school parking

Parents of children attending the Community School of Auchterarder appear to be heeding road and parking restrictions.

During a visit by council parking attendants earlier this week, no tickets were issued for bad parking during the school pick-up period.

It follows a campaign last year in which the school run was deliberately targeted to highlight the dangers of bad driving and parking for youngsters.

On Monday the school took to social media to warn: “Traffic wardens now visiting school enforcing drop- off zone restrictions. #YeDinnaeWantATicket”.

A spokesperson for Perth and Kinross Council said: “The parking attendants were on duty in Auchterarder that afternoon and their attendance at the school was part of their routine patrol. Any school that falls within an allocated patrol area, will be visited either at the start of school or at the end of school.

“The attendants wi l l also attend schools when a complaint is raised by parents, teachers, councillors or Police Scotland.

“Parking attendants’ main duties are to ensure free flow of traffic and to ensure a fair and consistent turnover of marked bays, this is achieved by educating motorists either verbally or by issuing a Penalty Charge Notice. No Penalty Charge Notices were issued outside of the school during this patrol.”

In January 2016 Police Scotland and Perth and Kinross Council stepped up awareness efforts for parking at or near schools. In Auchterarder part of the town’s High Street is restricted to 20mph near to the school.

A police representative said at the time: “A particular trend outside the Community School of Auchterarder has been the use of the allocated disabled parking spaces being used by drivers who are not disabled or by parents picking up non-disabled children.

“This, in turn, means that this facility is not available for those who really need it.”

The council is also continuing its pilot scheme for a handful of school exclusion zones in other parts of the area. These started being introduced in November 2016 and all four were in place for Monday, February 20.

Motorists are banned from certain streets near to schools, with several benefits being looked at. These include encouraging pupils to walk to school as well as reducing the impact of the school run on local residents.

Currently the zones are in place at Arngask, Burrelton, Coupar Angus and Luncarty primary schools.

A council spokesperson continued: “Investigations to indicate the success of the project will take place and are planned for later in the year. We will formally monitor the project during the 18 month trial period and the results will be reported back to the Environment, Enterprise and Infrastructure Committee during 2018.”