roads beside a school operated by management company

[AKA]

We have 2 school entrances in a new housing estate of 270 homes. The schools are a great asset.

The council has already taken in charge one road that leads to the entrance of the secondary school.

The primary school entrance is on another road operated by the management companies.

Both of these roads are the main entrances to our estate.

Now, the council is opening an inner relief road that will push the primary school cars fully into our estate as there is no parking provision. The secondary school has a huge car park. There will be chaos on our narrow road each morning.

The inner relief road is opening under Part 8 planning permission. We have a chance to make a submission - should we be looking for the council to take over the second road where the primary school is and / or provide parking for the school. The school is in temporary accomodation and there is a few acres of fields available to them including space for parking.

Should we increase our public liability insurance? In the long term as the number of pupils increase - there are only 3 years of students in both new schools - do we have any rights to get the council to take over all roads in this small estate. I see increased management agent fees for residents as 1000 secondary and 300 primary students and their families pass through our estates each day to cover insurance and maintenance fees.

It could take 10 years for the developer driven outer relief road to open, at that stage the entrance to the secondary school will lead from it.

If the council won't take over the road to the primary school can the management company who operate the road put down double yellow lines on the road.

Any information appreciated.

 

[Johnboy45]

don't know if the management company can put down yellow lines or not, but from my experience as a board of management member in our local boys primary, cars will park anywhere there is space outside a school, we have had in this order, yellow lines, yellow box, flashing amber lights with a pedestrian crossing, and finally the council recently raised the crossing on the road to a speed bump type of crossing and now the cars just stop on top of the speed bump oblivous to all around. best of luck !

 

[Butter]

From your description I suspect I know exactly where you are talking about. As far as I know, until the council take charge of the roads in the estate then speed bumps, traffic calming measures and speed limits (and I would imagine yellow lines) can't be put in place or enforced. However there is a development in the village that has a clamping company in place to clamp non-residents. There seems to be a lot of debate about whether they are legally allowed to do that or not.
Have you approached your developer to find out when they intend to apply to council to take charge of the estate? From your point of view the sooner that happens the better so it is worth pushing them to do it as soon as possible. I would say that with the slowdown in construction it will be a long time until the outer relief road is ready as it the responsibility of the developers.
When the inner relief road opens I think there will be chaos in the area. The other national school will also have major parking issues in the future as they are planning to put buildings on their current car park.
Have you tried contacting one of the local councillors who also happens to be chairman of the county council? He can be helpful and has helped us with issues in our own development. There has been talk of the combined residents association in the area starting up again and this is certainly an appropriate subject for them to tackle.
In defence of the primary school they have sent many letters to parents asking us to be mindful of people living in the neighbouring estates and I think most people try to park carefully (I know there are some who are still oblivious). I drive a lot in my job and I think the issue of parking is a problem around schools everywhere. Somehow I doubt it will be possible for the school to provide a proper car park as they can't even get their permanent school built at the moment.
I hope after all that I have got the locality right!

 

[Brylcreem]

Link to news section of MCC with details of inner relief road. Double yellow lines to be painted 100M either side of junctions and traffic lights to be installed at all junctions along the road.
[broken link removed]

 

[AKA]

Thanks all for your input.

Yes Marg, sounds like you have the right area alright. Yes, we are going to talk to local councillors about it. The road at the primary school is probably still maintained by developer but adjoining footpath, and all other roads off it are not. The parents will be pushed onto these other roads. I think it could be some time before the developer relinquishes the road as he will need it for future access but we can check it out.

Because we have 2 management companies in the estate all the other roads, currently the management companies (residents) and not the developer are responsible for the other roads and public liability insurance.

I think a parking plan and safe crossing points even if parking spills over onto the other roads would be a good idea. And we need to check our public liability insurance is valid etc.