PARENTS have been left furious after a ‘money-grabbing’ cricket club made the call to charge them for using its car park for daily school runs.
The families say the “ridiculous” decision means their youngsters’ lives could now be at risk as they will have to walk in busy school traffic in the mornings and afternoons.
They’re also warning the change will cause traffic “chaos”.
The North Yorkshire car park is owned by a cricket, bowls and tennis club and from this month people who stop there are set to be charged.
But for years the site has been used by parents who drop their children off at the nearby school or nursery.
Mike Walton, 56, is one of those, and says the change will have “a massive impact” on his family.
Read more on car parking
He told The Sun Online: “We live on Skelton and have to drive in. What am I supposed to do now, park on the street and risk my child crossing the road which is dangerous?
“Or if I park further away and it’s pouring rain he will get soaked through.”
Mike said he could understand charging people who were parking for hours and taking up a valuable spot, but, he added: “For a 15 minute drop off it seems ridiculous.
“There’s ample parking here and we aren’t impacting the cricket club. They aren’t open now until the summer.
“We chose this school because it has a good rating from Ofsted and it had parking.
“We aren’t eligible for a free bus pass so there is no other option for us than to drive.”
The Saltburn Cricket, Bowls and Tennis Club owns the site, and it sits near Saltburn Day Nursery and the Saltburn Learning Campus – which encompasses Huntcliffe Secondary School and Saltburn Primary School.
When questioned about the backlash, a club spokesperson said “of course” they want students to be safe, but there are times not even their members can find a spot in the car park.
The club is set to start groundwork on Monday in preparation for Parkingeye to start managing the car park and charging users.
Many parents are questioning the intentions behind the change, with Leah Jones, 35, dubbing it a “money-making scheme for the club”.
But, she has other concerns too, adding: “We have to drive to school because we live a few miles out.
“There’s no public transport for my son as the bus comes an hour-and-a-half after school finishes, which means it would take him two hours to get home.
“He would have no time to do homework if that was the case – and not to mention how dangerous it is for a child to wait for a bus in the dark during the winter.”
Leah also said there had been no communication on the matter.
She said: “We received an email from the school about the parking changes but we still don’t know if it’s a fine or a time limit.”
On the topic of being fined, parent Naomi Patton, 39, said: “Parents can’t afford to pay fines, especially in the cost-of-living crisis.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do when it happens.”
Naomi said she also thought the traffic would be “horrendous”, adding: “It won’t be that bad on a morning because it’s literally a quick stop but waiting for the kids after school will be manic.
“It’s going to be dangerous because children will have to cross busy roads to find their parents.
“People are going to start parking in residential areas which will cause issues with locals.”
Two other parents, Dean Mitchinson, 50, and Wendy Clark, 53, also agreed the change was going to cause “chaos”.
A Saltburn Cricket, Bowls and Tennis Club spokesperson previously told TeesideLive “we can’t keep everybody happy and we’re sorry about that”.
The spokesperson explained: “People don’t like change, we can massively understand that.
“We’ve been looking at this for a while now. We didn’t have an issue with people using it.
“But cars are there for months on end, they park there when there are events on in town.
“The tennis, cricket, and bowls guys couldn’t get parked, there was absolute chaos.”
The spokesperson continued: “The school was only designed to be a secondary school, now the car park situation is completely different.
“Of course we’ve got morals and we want young people to be safe. What school has a private car park for their use? We’ve had a lot of emails, there are a few upset people.”
