More on School Lane parking

Some background on yesterday's report on AudlemOnline about parking in School Lane.

School lane has two junctions with the Woore Road (Stafford Street). One is by the old Post Office leading down to Vicarage Lane (the subject of yesterday's news item). The other is from the Salford junction, which also leads to Vicarage Lane.

In Vicarage Lane both the Country Home at the Old Grammar School (OGS) and the local telephone exchange need to have unhindered access for large lorries. (Primary need is for ambulance, fire engine, food delivery and clinical waste collection.)

Some years ago access to the OGS became almost impossible on a regular basis due to vehicles parked (both day and night) by non-residents of School Lane. This led to acrimonious exchanges between lorry drivers and residents and resulted at one point in the loss of waste bin collections, the police regularly having to move parked cars causing an obstruction.

Eventually an on-site meeting between representatives of the council, the police, the fire brigade and others resulted in the Salford junction being agreed as the prime access point for emergency and large vehicles, and they stipulated that the Salford end of the lane be kept clear. White posts were provided by the council to stop parking on the verge and no waiting cones were provided for use during village events to deter parking by visitors to the area.

This decision has been widely respected by local resident, and parking in this stretch of School Lane by both residents and non- residents is now rare.

Alternative parking was considered, but nowhere was found and the police advised those they moved on to use the village car park. Some now park at the Post Office end of School lane.

For many years now there has been unhindered access to both the OGS and the Telephone Exchange for large and emergency vehicles from the Salford junction.

It would be a retrograde step if any action taken to solve the congestion near the old Post Office resulted in this unhindered access being compromised.

This article is from our news archive. As a result pictures or videos originally associated with it may have been removed and some of the content may no longer be accurate or relevant.