School Parking FAQs

Pavilion Close & Parish Office Car Parks

School parents often approach the Parish Council to query parking opportunities for school drop offs and pick-ups, particularly in relation to Pavilion Close and Parish Office Car parks.

Here are some key FAQ’s to help: -

The short answer is restrictive planning conditions. When the cricket pavilion was built, as part of the planning approval, Eastleigh Borough Council conditioned the use of the car park for sporting use only. This was largely in response to strong objections from local residents.

When the Clerk and Operations Manager joined the Council in 2018/19 they sought to seek ways in which the Parish could help alleviate parking congestion around the area, starting with examination of the Pavilion car park.

In December 2020, the Clerk, along with local PCSO’s undertook a street survey and asked a number of Pavilion Close residents what they thought about opening up the car park to alleviate congestion on the road during school pick up times.

A couple of residents at the top end of the road were supportive, a large majority of residents living nearer the car park indicated their strong objection stating the larger numbers of parents accessing the car park through a residential road would only exacerbate the current issues i.e. obstructive parking, blocking of resident’s drives etc. The road was not built to the standard for the amount of traffic of a through road for a car park. Several residents submitted a petition letter to the Council.

Whilst the Council would have like to have trialed a temporary scheme, without residents’ support, it would be very unlikely that EBC would agree to remove the conditions. It is for this reason that the Pavilion car park, cannot be opened up for general parking at this moment in time.

The Parish Office has 12 parking bays. These have to accommodate:

  • Patients attending the diabetic eye screening clinic which runs Mon-Weds 9.00am – 5.00pm
  • Wyvern teaching staff
  • Parish Council staff

 

Whilst the car park is for the users above, parent parking cannot be enforced. Should you use the Parish Office car park, we ask that parent’s move their cars by 9.00am to allow essential users access to the car park.

There are other car parks within walking distance of the school(s) such as Knowle Park Lane, Conservation Car Park and the Lapstone Pub.

Some schools sites are already restricted in size/access so may not be suitable for health and safety reasons.

In addition, the policy of Hampshire County Council, as the Local Education Authority, is to promote healthy lifestyles in students and encourage pupils to walk or cycle to school. This is why they do not provide for parent parking on their sites.

The Parish Council supports the promotion of healthy lifestyles and reducing carbon emissions. But we do appreciate that this is frustrating to parents. Many of us also have school age children attending schools across the Borough so do sympathize.

Should any parents, teachers, community groups would like to set up a walking bus scheme – we’d be happy to support and help where we can.