Primary School’s Charging Parents £45 Drop Off Fine!

Would you pay £45 a year just to be able to drop off and pick up your kids from school in the car? It may sound ridiculous, but that’s what a primary school in Staffordshire is starting to enforce!

St Gregory’s Catholic Acadamy have a serious issue with people parking on double yellow lines outside of their school and blocking views for other cars. The safety of the children is being put at risk and for that reason they have chosen to take action in a bid to reduce traffic on the roads. 

The school is planning on creating a 50 space car park on site for parents to use. The car park won’t be free however, instead parents will have to pay £2 a week or £15 a term which will work out at around £45 a year! 

The Head Teacher of the school Margaret Yates explained to the Stoke Sentinal: ‘As the head, and also a parent, I fully understand the difficulty in parking around the school, but the safety of the children has to be put first, above everything else.’

She added: “We have a budget for the education of our children and of course safeguarding comes into that. But we can not spend that money on a car park, which is why we must look elsewhere to cover the costs.”

As you can imagine the reaction to these plans have been mixed. Obviously some parents feel reluctant to start coughing up £45 a year just for parking, however, other parents see it from a different angle and agree with the safety side to things thinking it is a great solution to an on-going problem. 

CLICK HERE to find out why schools are starting to fine parents for being late to pick up their children.