I AM writing in reply to last week’s letter from the unnamed parent of a child at Borlase.

As a resident of Harwood Road I am fully aware that we live in a public road and that parking is legal and if they wished to walk along here on any week day morning maybe they would reconsider the ‘mad’ aspect of their reply.

What I, and many of my neighbours object to, is the careless, poor parking around our road and Penwood Lane. I have two small children and often have trouble getting out my own drive in the morning as the pupils pull up and park up for the day with little respect for anyone else.

Their parking leaves a lot to be desired and as I look out of my window this morning I would ask the parents who have provided these cars to look at the way they are parked and judge for themselves if they find it acceptable and how they would feel if they lived in this road.

I sometimes do ask they move and am often give a ‘smart’ remark about being late or the car park being too far away for them and the ‘yeah whatever’ remarks – not the kind of English one would expect from the ‘crème de la crème’ of the county.

If we call the school there appears to be very little interest in what these students do away from school grounds, a far cry from the attitude held when I was there as a 6th form student in the early ‘90s, and was once told by a secretary that if the residents didn’t like it she suggested that we got a petition together.

The road has a lot of elderly neighbours and access for ambulances, mini buses etc. is often needed and this careless, lazy approach to parking doesn't help this at all.

Last week it was the funeral of one neighbour and the night before we had to park strategically to ensure the hearse was able to get into the drive and even then I had to ask a student not to park so close because of this, he very kindly moved ten metres.

We know that the students have car parking facilities that they are meant to use and as residents we do try and accept there will be some overflow parking, but what I would also ask for is if these children are bright enough to attend a grammar school then maybe they can be bright enough to have a little respect and manners when it comes to local people. Yes, parent of that child, we live on a public road but we did actually pay good money to live here and are paying high council taxes for the privilege.

Maybe students, parents and teachers need to realise this road is not their given car park and see that other people do use the road and need access – not just them!

Natalie, full details supplied