Pembrokeshire County Council’s senior traffic engineer has admitted that there is ‘no easy answer’ to a traffic congestion problem around an area of Tenby that houses three schools.

Concerns over dangerous parking in and around Tudor Way and its junction with Heywood Lane, near Serpentine Road, during the mornings and afternoons, when children are being dropped-off or collected from schools, have been discussed by the town council in recent times, culminating in a recent site visit by PCC’s senior traffic engineer, Ben Blake.

The matter has been highlighted by the town council, taking on the concerns of local residents, with evidence passed on to PCC, the county’s director for children and schools, as well as the local police authority, as it has been considered a public safety matter.

Junior schools Ysgol Hafan y Môr and Tenby Church in Wales VC Primary School along with the town’s secondary college Greenhill School are all situated along the road.

Correspondence received from Mr. Blake on the matter following the recent site visit came before members of Tenby Town Council at their meeting on Tuesday night.

“In answer to your question, I can’t say that there is an easy answer to the problem. On the day we met it was absolutely freezing, blowing a gale and raining, so it is understandable why parents chose to drive to pick up their children rather than walk to school - although I understand this is a daily issue and not necessarily weather related,” explained Mr. Blake.

“In terms of Tudor Way, we could look to extend the restrictions along the western side of the estate road which would then allow traffic to exit the estate without obstruction.

“The main issue here, however, is whether the lines would simply be ignored (as they are now), which seems to be the issue, having witnessed it during our meeting.

Mr. Blake went on to say that PCC’s civil enforcement officers responsible for looking after illegal parking do look to carry out patrols during school pick-up times, but cannot be there every day of the school week and even when they are there, they have to give five minutes observation before a Penalty Charge Notice (PCN) can be issued.

“To overcome this, it may be that we look to change the current no waiting restrictions in this area to a prohibition of loading/unloading restriction,” continued Mr. Blake.

“This would see the introduction of kerb blips and would mean that a PCN could be issued straightaway without the requirement to provide an observation period.

“We could initially look to apply this change to the existing restrictions at the junctions of Tudor Way and St. David’s Close and monitor to see how effective they are and whether by doing so we haven’t moved the problem elsewhere.

“If anything, I would hope that by reinforcing the restrictions at the junctions only, the impact to parking would be minimal, yet at the same time by doing so, it would make it safer for traffic to manoeuvre in and out of the estate roads.”

Mr. Blake said that there may also be merit in looking at reconfiguring the traffic flow within the Tenby Church in Wales VC Primary School car park, as at present if a motorist is unable to find a space within the lane they they are travelling in, they are required to exit the car park back onto the main road to then re-enter.

“By allowing circulatory flow to operate, this will allow a motorist to look for a space without the need to exit and re-enter the car park. This would obviously need to be discussed with the school before any action is taken,” added Mr. Blake.

Discussing the correspondence, Clr. Mrs. Tish Rossiter, who told her colleagues that she went along to the site meeting, said that it was ‘chaos’ on the day with traffic.

“It’s a bit of a Catch 22, as if it had been a nice day, then parents and children would have been walking to school, but it was chaos up there, and I had no idea how bad it was at pick-up and drop-off times.

‘“Motorists were driving in, and then back out, and then around and around. I don’t know what the answer is, but basically the primary school shouldn’t have been built there!” she remarked.

Clr. Mrs. Tracey Evans felt that some of the suggestions put forward by Mr. Blake wouldn’t work, and would quite possibly make the situation worse, whilst Clr. Matthew Ronowitz suggested that it would help if teachers and staff at schools walked to work or car shared.

Clr. Paul Rapi said that one suggestion that could be trialled would be to stagger the closing times of the schools, so that there would be a gap of say 15 minutes between the primary and junior facilities.

“Parents might not like it, but I feel that it’s the only way, and we have to have a go at something as the numbers at the school are only getting bigger. It’s that or demolish the primary school, and build it somewhere else, and I don’t think Pembrokeshire County Council are going to do that!” he laughed.

Clr. Laurence Blackhall said that perhaps a significant campaign to get people to car share, or the idea of walking buses of pupils, which had worked in other areas, could be an additional idea.

The majority of councillors elected to vote in favour of Clr. Rapi’s suggestion to stagger school closing times to feedback to the county council.