Norfolk Community Primary Sheffield: The reality of living on street gridlocked twice a day

Every morning and afternoon, Guildford Rise in Arbourthorne transforms from a moderately busy residential street into a bumper-to-bumper circus. The no-through-way road is 110m and is only a minute’s walk away from the school gates – making it the go to parking spot for parents.

When The Star arrived before the rush at 8.10am on Wednesday, there were 36 residential cars parked on Guildford Rise. By the time the school gates were locked an hour later, 44 cars and four taxis had come and gone.

It wasn’t Piccadilly Circus at rush hour, but it was far from peaceful.

The vast majority arrived and were gone within 10 minutes, enough time to walk the little ones to the gates or class, natter with another household and get going. A few more pushed the kids out the door with a ‘have a good day’ and left.

Others cars arrived at 8.15am and were parked a whole 40 minutes. Some sat with engines idling for 15 minutes, for no particular reason. Some raced up the road at frankly uncomfortable speeds. And, above all, every inch of parking space, including the pavements, were annexed to the utmost.

At 8.30am, with no space to turnaround, an Uber reversed the entire length of the road just to get out. At 8.37am, three cars got caught in a jam, leading to the parents leaning out the windows to negotiate each other like ship captains in a busy port.

It was worst between 8.40am and 8.50am, when the cars locked into place like a freeform jigsaw puzzle and there was no space at all.

Then, the gates opened, the kids were off, the parents said their goodbyes and…they were all gone. The pan was taken off the boil and the number of cars climbed back down from approximately 55-60 to a typical 35. Over the next 15 minutes, only a single resident’s car arrived in Guildford Rise. See you all at 2.45pm?

These circumstances make life frustrating for residents. There are effectively two 45-minute windows a day where coming home and parking up is not an option. No nipping to the shops, no home time at last from a long shift, no visiting friends and family – when the school gates are open, there is no space for you on Guildford Rise.

This particular localised storm has a few unique qualities. Unlike most, Norfolk Primary has two gates. One on Guildford Rise, and the main gates on adjoining Guildford Avenue – which, very much worth noting, is a one way street, and surely adds to the stress of it all.In many other ways, this is all commonplace. The numbers of cars on the road grows every year. There isn’t a school in Britain where some nearby street or another is not filled with cars every dropping-off and home time. Sheffield already has a dozen roads running the “School Streets” scheme to close off access to cars so children can arrive safely. To a man, none of these schemes are popular with residents (or parents, often).

But, plainly, the situation in Arbourthorne wasn’t great even before the parents arrived. There were 36 cars on Guildford Rise when The Star arrived. There are not 36 parking spaces. Residents arriving home are already parking with all-four-wheels on the pavement to fit all their cars in.

Even at its calmest, the street is overcapacity.

One resident on his way to work on Wednesday told The Star: “It’s rubbish. Complete rubbish. If you come back at 9am or 3pm, this place is a car park. But stick around another until 10am and it’s empty, because everyone’s at work by then.

"I can’t park if I want to. I’ve been blocked in by parents’ cars and unable to get to work. You have to decide if you can even come back home in the afternoons.

“The parents are a law unto themselves. If you end disagreeing with one and they say ‘sorry, sorry, it won’t happen again’, it’ll just be a different parent next time blocking you in.”

Well… Residents probably won’t take solace knowing it seems not even the parents like this arrangement.

“What are we supposed to do?” said one mum, who arrived to school in a big four-wheel drive. “I hate it, too. I can understand it. It’s horrible how many cars there are here every morning. [The residents] must be so mad. But what else do we do?”

The mum, who said she lives a 10 minute drive away, also said dropping them off on Guildford Avenue without leaving her car was out of the question.

“I will always walk my two kids to their classes. No way am I sending them up the path on their own. You never know what could happen,” she said.

Now, of course there were children walking to school. Dozens and dozens, in fact. Too many to count.

Some comments on The Star’s initial story accused parents of being lazy, not getting out enough, being irresponsible to their children. But it’s clear there is a very active, confident walk-to-school clique at Norfolk Community.

But the school has 455 children on its roll. Even if 50 per cent of them walked – which, the school says, is the case – that’s still a lot of cars. And on this particular one way road, there is no where more convenient for a quick no-harm-done drop off than Guildford Rise.

In the upcoming academic year, more than 40 per cent of new Reception age children are from outside Norfolk Community’s catchment area. Not many guesses how they are getting there each day.