PETERBOROUGH’S LACK OF PARKING SAFETY RESOURCES

Parking around all Schools in Peterborough is very limited and unfortunately; due to the lack of parking it has presented a large problem for many years. However; a significant issue is arising due to people parking not only illegally but irresponsibly…meanwhile putting Children’s lives at risks.

If you follow my FACEBOOK page or blog you may have seen my many posts regarding the issues that are appearing and being reported in the Gunthorpe-Ward.  When these issues started arising I noticed these brilliant banners at a different Primary School. I enquired about them and asked for them to be issued to Three Local Primary Schools. Including; Gunthorpe Primary School, Norwood Primary School and Welbourne Primary School .

It quickly became clear to me that these Banners were not to be a permanent fixture and were to be rotated around the 70 Primary Schools in Peterborough. I appreciate that 70 Large banners of this size and durability would cost approximately  £2500. But at this time I wasn’t quite aware of the lack of resources we were faced with.

Upon response from all three Primary Schools; I was told that the last Primary School was unable to have a banner until February; when the other two schools had to return theirs.

The Reason for this?.. 
Although this is a City Wide issue; it soon got explained to me that we only have 2 Parking Banners to share around 70 primary schools. If this wasn’t a common issue, or a wasn’t a serious issue; that amount might be understandable. But I was shocked that an issue that affects the whole of our city (and is extremely serious as it could cause danger to the Children) caused the Tory Controlled Council to only have enough funding for ONLY 2 of these banners.

What did I DO? 

I sincerely feel that among the many other things I have arranged and put in place to happen for Gunthorpes local primary schools, that the Safer Parking Banners are significantly helping. It saddened me that the council thought it was acceptable for there to only be 2 of these banners rotating 70 local schools at any one given time. This was not good enough. No amount of money is too much to ensure a Child’s Safety- Or even contribute towards it…surely?

SO I decided this question needed to be asked at the Full Council Meeting which was held Yesterday evening 25th January 2017.

The question I brought forward to the Leader of Peterborough City Council, Conservative Councillor John Holdich was the following…

“Towards the end of last year I requested ‘safer parking banners’ for three of the local primary schools, who were seeing significant issues regarding the safety of their children; due to the parking issues our cities schools are facing. My Question to the relevant cabinet member is; why are there only two of these banners available at any one given time? When this is clearly a city wide issue?”

I’m extremely pleased to inform you all that a rare occasion happened at a Full Council Meeting; and I was very pleased with the outcome of the question that I raised…as Councillor John Holdich has now planned to provide more Banners and Resources for safer parking to the City.

This is a very good outcome and I am very pleased that I have managed to secure more Banners and Resources so that hopefully more of our schools can benefit from them at the same time and so as a City we can all benefit from these resources.

Please continue to like my PAGE and follow my BLOG to keep updated!

Councillor Andrew Bond