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Parking around Liphook Infants and Junior School - Richard (18th Mar 2017 - 13:19:27) It was notified to parents that parking is problematical around the schools at leaving time (and this topic has been mentioned on this forum too!) My question to the population of Liphook is: With the increase in Liphook's population since the school opened. what, if anything, has been done by the local council or school to try and alleviate the parking issues? Some suggestions.... Is it possible to stagger leaving times? Implement a system where by all school cars come in one end of the avenue, and leave my the other? The school has suggested park and stride (park away from the school and walk the final bit) The school has a drop off point and supervises the walk to school? Contentious suggestion: If you can't park your 4x4 in a reasonable sized space, or get of out of said space, get a car more suited to your needs! Get the children out of school on time, so people are not waiting unnecessarily If we can't get this addressed soon, Liphook will grind to a halt!

Re: Parking around Liphook Infants and Junior School - Jamie (18th Mar 2017 - 15:36:45) Liphook - No different to most places with schools. Cause - Lots of parents who want to park as close as possible to the school. Lots of parents who think their darlings can't walk more than 20 metres . Solution - Reduce speed limits around the school, and improve crossings. Make it difficult to park and maybe some will get off their backsides and walk. Many live less than a mile away, or can park a mile away and walk! Result - Fitter parents and children and a less obese population. Reduced air pollution. Safer roads.

Re: Parking around Liphook Infants and Junior School - Rachel (18th Mar 2017 - 19:38:03) I agree wholeheartedly with Jamie. People need to walk more.

Re: Parking around Liphook Infants and Junior School - Paul (18th Mar 2017 - 20:00:35) "Cause - Lots of parents who want to park as close as possible to the school. Lots of parents who think their darlings can't walk more than 20 metres ." @Jamie - some people need to park as close as possible - they are disabled. Stop generalising.

Re: Parking around Liphook Infants and Junior School - EC (18th Mar 2017 - 20:48:23) The traffic problem could be solved if parents who lived within walking distance of the school, i.e. a mile, actually used their legs and walked their children to school. I have 3 children at the infants and junior schools and we walk a mile to and from school everyday. As a result all 3 are fit and healthy. Collectively they have been at school for over 7 years and have had 1 day off through illness between them.

Re: Parking around Liphook Infants and Junior School - Janet (19th Mar 2017 - 01:30:44) Although I agree in principle that more people should walk, not everyone has the time to 'walk a mile' to and from the school twice a day. If you're a working parent and you need to drop your child off at school before going to work, there isn't time for a two mile walk to the school and back every morning before setting off for work. Most people would head straight to work after dropping off, not go home again first! Similarly, in the afternoons many parents dash straight from work to the school pickup. There again wouldn't be time for them to drive home, then walk to the school to collect the children. For stay-at-home mums and dads, there is less of an excuse!

Re: Parking around Liphook Infants and Junior School - Jamie (19th Mar 2017 - 09:04:37) Poor argument Janet. You have convinced yourself that it is ok to park as close as possible to the school just because you work. Do you really cut it that fine to leave work? Sure there is the odd unexpected hold up but honestly how often does that happen. Nobody said you have to go home first and not many people live 2 miles away so exageration is not required! Children don't have to be collected at a specific time in the afternoon - there is an element of leeway, although the system should definitely not be abused. However, there is usually more than enough time to allow walking a short distance by parking a little further away. Some drivers are prepared to spend the same amount of time queuing, manoeuvring and blocking other traffic rather than by walking to school after parking a little further away.

Re: Parking around Liphook Infants and Junior School - Ray (19th Mar 2017 - 10:04:28) Wow, the yellow lines are down, what a waste of money as they are only down where people don't park anyway, I.e on junctions. What's happened to the rest?

Re: Parking around Liphook Infants and Junior School - Janet (19th Mar 2017 - 10:52:08) Jamie, are you suggesting that a parent who lives a mile away from the school and who has to be in work in, say, Petersfield by 9.00am, would have time to walk the mile to school with the children, drop the children off, then walk the mile back home again before setting off in time to to get to work by 9.00am? That seems a little unrealistic. Or if they lived further away, you're suggesting they could park a mile away from the school and walk the two-mile round trip to the school and back to the car? I have used "a mile away" as the illustration because that was your suggestion of a do-able walking distance. I agree that it's perfectly do-able - indeed I used to do exactly that myself - but my argument was not about the distance but about the time it takes.

Re: Parking around Liphook Infants and Junior School - P Bell (19th Mar 2017 - 20:36:00) I collect my granddaughter 1 day a week at 3p.m. As I do not live locally last week I arrived ar 2.15 and all parking places were taken, I have been told cars are left there all day maybe that should be looked at.

Re: Parking around Liphook Infants and Junior School - The Joy (19th Mar 2017 - 21:40:32) The radius of pupil intake has increased to surrounding villages due to the popularity of Bohunt. I used to live in Lindford when I was at school and never knew anyone that went to Liphook Infants or Juniors or Bohunt.

Re: Parking around Liphook Infants and Junior School - The Joy (19th Mar 2017 - 21:44:45) Parking further away from the school will just push the problem somewhere else, not solve it. Tower Road is now a nightmare and the turning into Tunbridge Crescent is a accident waiting to happen with people parking so close to the junction

Re: Parking around Liphook Infants and Junior School - Julian (20th Mar 2017 - 12:10:35) Richard has made some good points. Jamie's comments are totally unfounded. The Liphook schools cover a large area and most people do live over a mile away. Most parents I know who live locally already walk to school. I think some real statistics are required here. The difficulty is that there is nowhere for parents to park. A majority of the cars that park along Avenue Close belong to local residents. If you actually take time to look most of them do not go anywhere of a morning (or an afternoon for that matter). The council should take a look and decide how more spaces can be provided during school drop-off times. If all the spaces outside the school were made available for drop-off and collection then that might present a resolution. Its worth a try surely? Maybe start by taking time to establish how many cars actually attend the school of a morning? We might be surprised as to how few there are in the scheme of things? Given the limited parking, possibly no more than 50 cars presently? Who knows. Jamie, maybe you could volunteer to undertake a survey? :-) Another alternative might be to move the teachers parking or drop-off parking to the bottom of the playing fields. An in/out road here might eliminate most traffic from Avenue Close altogether? Just food for thought.

Re: Parking around Liphook Infants and Junior School - L (20th Mar 2017 - 18:24:23) Julian, not sure where you get your information from - as a resident in Avenue Close, I can tell you with 100% certainty that the vast majority of parked/abandoned cars at school times are not those of residents, but of parents. Avenue Close is pretty much deserted when the school is shut. This afternoon when I returned home at just after 3pm, there was a car (Range rover?) parked completely on top of the new yellow lines on the Avenue, close to the junction with Avenue Close ,which goes to show that yellow lines are not going to stop inconsiderate parking... I mean, they have only just been painted on for goodness sake, and they are already being ignored! We have had this debate about traffic and parking a number of times and there is no solution that will fix the issue of a large number of children needing to get to and from school at certain times of the day. I don't particularly like it, but we do have to accept it.

Re: Parking around Liphook Infants and Junior School - Kay (20th Mar 2017 - 19:12:24) This is an issue that has been discussed on talkback before, dating back to 2012. Clearly no solution has been found as 5 years down the line the same problems are happening. There is already staggered leaving times with a 10 minutes difference. Many people already park away from the schools using the Catholic church car park, Tunbridge Crescent, Tower Rd, The Avenue and Longmoor Rd and many others walk the whole way. However there clearly is still a large amount of people, that for their own reasons (it is not for us to judge them for that) need to drive and park outside the school. The 30 or so spaces (some of which residents and school staff use) are not adequate enough for the size of both schools. There could be up to 270 children in the Infants and 360 in the Juniors with obviously some children being siblings so that number doesn't necessarily account for the same amount of cars but considering those numbers it is no wonder the roads around the schools suffer congestion during school drop off and pick up times. One solution I have thought about is if the grassed areas that are located on the left hand side of The Avenue (Headley Rd end) are council owned then maybe they could be turned into the pavement and the current pavement could be made into a parking layby,(obviously keeping access to driveways) this would help keep The Avenue open to two way traffic which would then help keep Headley Rd free flowing. I know this idea only goes about helping 1 road out of the many that are effected but it could be a small step in the right direction. Of course any solution could end up costing money so perhaps that's why there has never been one because budgets are used elsewhere.

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