PARENTS have told how their kids’ school is using CCTV cameras to slap them with hefty parking fines.

Car owners who have been parking on zig-zag yellow lines outside Signhill’s Primary in Cleethorpes, North East Lincolnshire, were warned they faced £70 fines at the start of term.

The school said they were putting up cameras to monitor the rule – “in a push to improve pupil safety”.

The CCTV cameras are now dividing opinions, with many agreeing that they were long needed.

But working parents maintained they were being penalised because they were on tighter schedules than full-time mums and could not come early to find a space.

Former pupil Victoria Coxon, 36, said: “The cameras are long overdue. Parking around the school site has been a problem since I was a pupil years ago – all because some people are too lazy to walk.”

Kim Brown, who works as a receptionist in the local vets, also welcomed the cameras but was concerned about the impacts on clients.

She said: “We had one woman whose dog died over night. She came down and had to walk along the road with a dead dog in her arms because she could not find a space.”

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Sarah Smith was one of the few to challenge the policy, saying: “The trouble is if you are working it is difficult to get here early to secure a space and you have to drive to get here on time.

“So I think working parents are going to be irked of they get a ticket. The issue is not lazy parking. It is about there not being enough places to park around the school in the first place.”

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Local carpet dealer Michele Romagnuolo, 40, said: “It is still mayhem when the school gates are open. It is even worse in the mornings.

“I have to come in early at 8.30am just to get a space before I open and I’m paying to use the car park which the parents aren’t.”

But mum of three Elaine Whitton, 42, marching her kids away from the school gates, declared: “I think it is a fabulous idea.

“There are some days you cannot even cross the road because the cars are so stacked up. I have seen people parked in front of the school at 8.30, sat in their cars texting on their mobile phones.”

But some mums and dads foxed the £2.1m system by leaving their cars out of sight – some of them in the driveways of local residents.

Disabled mum Donna Martinez, 51, said: “People have been pinching disabled spaces in front of the shops. It is awful. When you challenge them they say disabled people are ‘privileged’.”

Rawan Alanker, 29, said: “I think it is a good idea. It is a safety issue for the kids if the cars are parked anywhere near the yellow zig zags.”

Also on the school run Ayat Hakeem, 22, added: “Many parents park all over the place in absurd places. It was chaos. So this has made things better.”

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Councillor Ron Shepherd, the council's portfolio holder for safer and stronger communities, said: "It is clear the message is not getting across fully and I would join everyone in saying that I certainly do not wish to hear of a serious accident because people are not heeding those warnings.

"Where there's evidence of parents dropping pupils off within a zig-zagged area outside the school they will face a fixed penalty."

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