Community leaders in the north-east’s biggest town have launched a campaign to combat dangerous parking outside schools.
During an event at Peterhead’s Buchanhaven School, community warden Ian Kennedy warned children could be injured if drivers continued to park illegally.
Mr Kennedy was joined at the campaign launch yesterday by councillor Anne Allan, a leading member of the Buchan Community Safety Group and stand-in head teacher Linda Strachan.
Parking outside Buchanhaven School, the largest primary in the area, is notoriously bad and now the safety group has urged action.
Mr Kennedy said: “If you’re near a school, drive within reason. There is no parking allowed on zig-zag lines.
“When I stop people who’ve parked illegally I ask them, how would you feel if you hit a child, or a parent for that matter?
“Down at Central School double parking is the big problem. There was one woman in a distinctive car who we saw doing it several times.
“When I asked her to move, she just said ‘well you have to park somewhere’. It was disgusting.”
Ms Allan added: “That’s the attitude – if one person does it, everyone will do it. The police over the last year have begun to pay more attention to dangerous and illegal parking, and have charged some drivers.”
The safety group has liaised with police officers in the town who have said they will crack down on drivers who park illegally outside schools.
Each of the area’s 13 primary schools will be given all-weather banners to hang outside the school gates, and teachers and lollipop staff issued with ‘Are You a School Gate Parker?’ flyers to put onto windscreens of parked cars.
Mrs Strachan, who is on secondment from nearby Dales Park School, said: “I reckon you could go back through years of our school newsletters and the message in every issue would be the same – don’t park on zig-zags.
“People are putting their own kids’ lives at risk.”
Mrs Strachan said that although no child has been seriously injured outside the school in Hope Street, several wing mirrors have been hit and it is only a matter of time before a more serious incident occurs.
Mr Kennedy has now urged members of the public to report dangerous parking directly to the police.