A NEW “park and stride” scheme will encourage parents to use council car parks to prevent “dangerous and unsafe” parking during pick-up and drop-off times.

Rochford councillors unanimously approved a report to implement a new “pilot scheme” at Rayleigh Primary School at Tuesday night’s economic development, regeneration and tourism committee meeting.

The new “park and stride” scheme for the school in Love Lane is being launched due to concerns raised by the school and parents about unsafe parking in streets nearby and the impact of engines being left to idle.

Mike Sutton, Lib Dem councillor for Wheatley, said: “The issue with the area around Rayleigh Primary is that it has one of the most unsafe entries for a primary school not on a main road and we have had some traffic surveys done by Essex County Council.

“Visibility is really bad around there and it really is about the safety, it is important we address the safety around the schools and the second main point is to prevent damage happening to the roads.

“The idling there and the environmental impact of that is not beneficial as well.”

As part of the scheme, 30 spaces will be allocated for Castle Road car park and 20 spaces in Webster Way car park – to encourage safe parking rather than doing so dangerously near the school.

Mr Sutton added: “The number one point is that everyone in the meeting last night was a parent and we said we need to address this now before it becomes a regret, let’s stop this before an accident happens.

“We have made massive strides, across the council, on school child safety and we have done a lot in a short time.”

Mr Sutton added that while other schools, such as Edward Francis, could have been chosen for the scheme, with Rayleigh Primary having only 400 students, the council hopes to use them as a pilot before rolling it out across the district.

He added: “We aren’t taking revenue or spaces from the public, we are using spaces that weren’t being used frequently.”