PARENTS whose children attend schools in the centre of Alton have raised a 269-signature petition urging Hampshire County Council to provide a ‘Safe Place to Cross’ for those using the ‘park and stride’ scheme from the Victoria Road car park.

The parents claim the roads surrounding the car park can be dangerous for “everyone who lives, works, and goes to school and college near this busy spot” – including pedestrians and drivers, and that thought should be given by council engineers to finding a solution before someone is seriously hurt.

They cite, in particular, the width of the road in some areas, multiple blind bends along the stretch of road from Church Street, embracing Chauntsingers, St Lawrence Road and Victoria Road, and the number of parked vehicles which, they say, makes the roads hazardous to cross, particularly for children and vulnerable elderly people.

While valuing the introduction of the county council’s park-and-stride scheme, which enables parents with passes to park for free for 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes in the afternoon so they can walk their children to and from school without having to pay for parking, they believe more should be done to make the ‘stride’ part of the exercise safer for all concerned.

At present, the Victoria Road park-and-stride scheme is used by parents with children attending Alton Infant School, St Lawrence Primary, and Anstey Junior School, who obtain official passes from the school concerned.

Leading the campaign is mum of three Tee Newman, who says that stepping out to cross these roads on the way to school is “like taking your life in your hands”.

Her concern is not just for the children who attend the schools involved in the scheme but youngsters and their parents walking to nearby Amery Hill School, Bushy Leaze Children and Families Centre in Eastbrooke Road, and teenagers walking to Alton College on New Odiham Road, “who often walk with headphones on or face down in their phone”.

Also the drivers, who find the roads challenging, especially during the morning rush hour, and some of whom “speed around the bends” and use Victoria Road as a rat run.

Supporting Tee in the rain on Tuesday morning, to help raise awareness of the situation, was childminder Michelle, who often has to negotiate the roads with a posse of children and believes there has to be a way to slow down the traffic, whether it be a lollipop lady, an extension of the 20mph zone, and/or traffic-calming measures to force drivers to reduce their speed.

Melissa Bicknell’s 16-year-old daughter escaped serious injury three years ago when she was knocked down by a car as she was crossing St Lawrence Road, near the junction with Church Street. The accident was a shock for the driver and for the teenager, who had serious bruising but was otherwise unscathed.

She said: “She had a lucky escape but it scared me to death.”

Emma Wright, a mum of three, had a similar “near miss” when crossing with her two younger children just months ago – an experience that has left her “extremely wary” and behind any measures that will improve road safety for all users.

Alton Infant School headteacher Jayne Broach is anxious not to lose the park-and-stride facility on Victoria Road, stressing how invaluable the car park is to parents who would otherwise be parking on the road and/or paying to park.

While unaware, she said, of the strength of concern over safety issues on the surrounding roads, Mrs Broach urged parents to avoid trying to cross on the wider stretch of St Lawrence Road with its blind bends but to walk to a more narrow stretch of the road where visibility is better, making it safer to cross.

Also unaware of the petition, Patti Snook, head of centre at Bushy Leaze Children and Families Centre, said: “I will support any petition to make our surrounding roads safer. We actually have a crossing patrol on Nursery Road (adjoining Victoria Road) which is helpful, but our biggest concern is having cars parked on the pavements along Eastbrooke Road which makes it dangerous for parents to walk along the pavement. Sometimes parents with buggies are forced into the road.”

Mrs Snook said she would welcome an opportunity to participate in a park-and-stride location, “as long as the routes from there to schools can be made safe”.

Rob Humby, Hampshire County Council’s executive member for transport and the environment, said: “We received the petition this week and we will be looking at it in more detail before we respond.

“We take petitions, and other feedback from road users, very seriously and will carefully look at the situation in this part of Alton and at the concerns raised.

“I would urge all road users to take particular care near schools, and help to avoid dangerous situations arising for young children, by driving cautiously and parking appropriately.”