This issue of dangerous parking outside schools is a cause of increasing concern
This issue of dangerous parking outside schools is a cause of increasing concern
A bereaved Liverpool mum has appealed for improved road safety around Merseyside’s schools on what would have been her son’s 17th birthday.
Bobby Colleran was just six years old when he was hit by a van on his way home from school and later died at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital. It was his mum’s birthday.
Now, Joanne Colleran has spoken out and warned drivers about the potentially fatal consequences of illegal pavement parking around schools. The call-to-action comes amid a series of recent reports around dangerous parking and the risk it presents to children.
Earlier this week, the Liverpool ECHO reported on the ‘ridiculous and dangerous’ parking outside Hunts Cross Primary School in south Liverpool. Shocking images show how ‘selfish and lazy’ parents are putting children at risk as they routinely park across pavements and block roads outside the school.
Liverpool City Council has vowed to tackle the blight of dangerous pavement parking which has become a major issue around Merseyside in recent years. In January, the local authority officially adopted a new parking strategy aiming to help it deal with the problem.
Nonetheless, dangerous parking is still of huge concern and prompted one Merseyside school to contact the Bobby Colleran Trust (BCT) in the hopes of finding a solution. The problem has become so charged at St Margaret Mary’s School in Huyton that there have been reports of parents fighting over illegal parking.
Joanne founded the BCT after Bobby’s death and it has campaigned tirelessly to improve road safety for school children – everything from the ‘Slow Down for Bobby’ campaign to the use of designated cones to help schools safely manage school drop-off and pick-up points.
Today would have been Bobby’s 17th birthday and Joanne has made time to speak out on the dangers of pavement parking outside schools, she said: “These people who are pavement parking, not only are they making it impossible to see the children, they’re causing mayhem and tailbacks on the road.
“People are then getting frustrated, and then they’re zooming up the road and it’s just going from one bit of bad behaviour to another and escalating – there just seems to be no care whatsoever.”
Joanne said the Trust has been inundated with calls from concerned parents and schools looking for support in managing parking. Joanne also hopes that speaking out will serve as a powerful reminder to what is at stake around this issue.
Joanne added: “[Today], we should be celebrating Bobby’s 17th birthday and I say it a million times – it does not get any easier and as a family, we suffer daily.”
The Trust has been working with St Margaret Mary’s and has used its dedicated cones to clearly indicate areas not to park and areas where parking is safe. Ann Mckenna is a long-standing staff member of the BCT and explained the Trust is taking an active role on the parking issue and also providing educational resources around parking safety.
Ann said: “We’re also handing out our Bobby cones to schools and residents because we need to stop this selfishness, or another child could be killed. Tragically, people are so scared they’re saying it’s no longer a matter of ‘if’ but a matter of ‘when’. We all need to work together to stop that from happening.”
In terms of St Margaret Mary’s, even though the school falls within the borders of Knowsley Council, the road outside is under the authority of Liverpool City Council. One of the issues flagged to the ECHO about the parking situation at the school is the faded yellow zig zag markings.
A Liverpool City Council spokesperson said: “We have received an enquiry from a member of the public on Thursday 27 February about road markings outside St Margaret Mary’s School on Pilch Lane.
“This was regarding the road markings at the school and a H bar marking in front of a private property. If the H bar markings are faded then the owner/occupier that it serves needs to pay for it to be refreshed.
“Once a road marking enquiry has been made, an inspection of the highway will take place within a few weeks. The Pilch Lane highway inspection will take place within the next week.”
