RESIDENTS of a road near a school have taken matters into their own hands to prevent parents from parking inconsiderately.

Maxine Kemp, 41, of Long Road, decided to park her car over the entrance of the residential car park outside her house opposite Canvey Infant and Primary School, in order to stop parents taking up spaces.

The carer said: “I’ve just had enough.

“I have elderly neighbours who are further up and God forbid if they needed an ambulance and it couldn’t park.

“They park across the car park and all along the rest of the road.”

She has started a petition, which she intends to send to the council and the local MP and has managed to gain support from 20 local residents.

She added: “The man who I’ve been doing it with is disabled, he got in his car at 2.55pm and didn’t get out of the car park until 3.30pm the other day.

“I was blocked in from 8.30am to 12.30pm the other day and I have a little girl.

“If she was to fall over and hurt herself and I needed to get out, I wouldn’t be able to.

“Sometimes they are there at eight in the morning even though the kids don’t have to be at school until quarter to nine.

“I’ve spoken to all of the residents and it’s been going on for years so I said to them I’ll try and do something about it.

“We get abuse hurled at us when we complain to them as well, they just have no respect.

“Apparently the teachers park in here as well even though they have their own car park.”

A number of residents were also annoyed that the majority of the spaces in the car park are being taken up by teachers at both schools.

Peter Woodcraft, 60, of Long Road, said that the situation was getting worse with the teachers leaving their cars in the car park all day.

Mr Woodcraft said: “The worst part is that the school teachers block it all up but they’re here all day although the school deny that they park over here.

“It’s a residential car park, there used to be signs up stopping people from parking here.

“If they just dropped their kids off and left, it wouldn’t be such an issue but they stand outside their cars talking for half an hour.

“On top of that, we had two ice cream vans here the other day which didn’t help.”

The headteacher of the school, Ann Matthews, declined to comment.