Camden New Journal - Letters: Walk to school

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Camden New Journal - Letters to the Editor
Published: 22 November 2007

The walk to school can prove an impossibility

• I AM a Camden resident living in West Hampstead.
I applied to several state schools for my son, and accepted the closest school I was offered, which was in Hampstead. I applied to schools closer than that but was not accepted.
Since my son started school two years ago, the parking dispensation scheme has been degraded. I now find myself seven months pregnant, with a two-year-old in a buggy with simply no way of getting my son to school reliably.
I simply can’t walk up those hills any more. There is no public transport; there is no school transport; there is no parking.
I am fed up of the image of the “yummy mummy” in her 4x4 selfishly polluting the atmosphere. There are people like that on the school run, but the loss of the parking permit scheme won’t hurt them; a few parking tickets will not make a dent in their finances.
The majority of parents on the school run have no choice.
Approximately a third of the children in state schools in NW3 live in NW6; and more are from NW5 and NW2. There are 313 primary state school places per year in NW3 (an area populated by many who don’t use the state system); yet only 165 state school places in NW6.
I can’t walk now as I am heavily pregnant, but others can’t walk because they need to take care of their children or get to work (I reckon a third of the parents in my son’s school work in the public sector).
It is often impossible to walk when, for example, you have a sick younger child or it is pouring with rain.
Instead of addressing this issue by redistributing the schools in the borough or providing school buses, Camden in its wisdom sends out ridiculous maps marked with walking journey times estimated – showing exactly what hundreds of parents already struggle with every day.
There are very few schools in West Hampstead and four state schools in Hampstead Village and there is no public transport between West Hampstead and Hampstead Village.
I have no problem with Camden taking away the permits per se, but a huge problem with it taking away in the absence of an alternative.
Camden has supposedly completed a review on the permits but I don’t know of one parent who was consulted.
I simply have no way of getting my son to the state school that was allocated to him, apart from driving round and round and round Hampstead, creating more traffic congestion and pollution than when I could easily park with a dispensation.
NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, Camden New Journal, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@camdennewjournal.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Tuesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld. Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number. Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

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