A NEW call has been made to curb dangerous drivers by a school and councillors after a series of serious incidents.

It comes after a car mounted the pavement outside Castercliff Primary Academy and drove along the grass verge to avoid a traffic jam recently.

A similar incident happened on Monday morning, the school has said.

Now school bosses have backed a call from Nelson town councillor, Cllr Neil McGowan, for a Public Space Protection Order (PSPO) to be used to try and stop the problem.

PSPOs are used to deal with a problem in an area and can ban people from entering a specific area during certain times.

Cllr McGowan has said there should be an order stopping parents parking near the school and force them to park further up the road.

A breach of a PSPO, without reasonable excuse, is a criminal offence.

Cllr McGowan said: "I have been working with the school and residents for around 15 months now on dangerous parking at school drop off and pick up times.

"I have spent time moving vehicles from the zig zag lines and residents' driveways but I've never seen such a complete disregard for public safety as occurred last week.

"I witnessed a fire engine going down the road and because of the bad parking, it was unable to get down the road.

"If there had been a real emergency, the fire engine would have been severely delayed, which could put people's lives at risk.

"If cars parked further up the road, away from the school, this would alleviate the problem."

Headteacher Mark Sherwin said: "It's exceedingly worrying. These two incidents have accentuated the problem in terms of the danger to the children.

"There have been numerous pleas to parents to park further down the road and away from the school.

Unfortunately the vast majority have ignored this and continued to cause traffic problems."

Pendle Council has said it is working with the school to put in measures to prevent people driving or parking carelessly outside the school.

Tim Horsley, the authority's community protection officer, said: “We understand the difficulties faced by Castercliff Primary Academy and unfortunately it’s something which is shared by many schools.

“Work needs to be done to build up a picture of who uses the road and whether there are ways we can change drivers’ behaviour.

“One of the options we’re exploring is the feasibility of a Public Space Protection Order (PSPO) to control traffic movement during school opening and closing hours.”