Staff would have to pay for parking near the school they work at in a neighbourhood of Reading.
Redlands Primary in Lydford Road, East Reading, serves up to 210 pupils.
It is situated in a busy area with permit parking rules, with a neighbour calling for prioritised parking to be granted to school staff.
The proposal was floated at a meeting of Reading Borough Council’s traffic management sub-committee.
David Dymond said: “Redlands Primary school has been a major education
feature in the Redlands Ward, a working-class housing area for more than 120 years.
“As time has moved forward residential parking has become a fact of life and a very limited resource.
“Two facts impact upon the effective and efficient running of the school during the weekday.
“1) when the school was built in Victorian times onsite parking was not considered as necessary when everyone walked to school.
“2) within the Redlands estate public transport would not fit into the narrow, often dead-end streets.
“I know some parking provision has been given to some school teachers. But in order to operate the school has to have admin staff and learning assistants who are typically low paid female workers.
“There are some public parking places in Upper Redlands, Addington Road and Alexandra Road but due to the large number of flats and student accommodation any spaces are greatly oversubscribed.”
Mr Dymond asked whether parking places during school hours could be allocated to more staff.
He then joked that he personally uses the ‘Shanks’s pony’ method -walking- for his own school work.
Despite the request, it was concluded the school would need to pay £398 for a discretionary business parking permit.
John Ennis (Labour, Southcote), lead councillor for climate strategy and transport said: “Given that as a council we are actively working to discourage motorists using private vehicles through various means, the most obvious one being emissions-based charging.
“By granting a permit to non-teaching staff would give the impression of
favouring one group of workers over the rest of the boroughs workforce and residents.
“As parking controls expand into other areas, as they inevitably will, the precedent is then set for others to cite the decision and follow the same route.
“The agreement to issue permits to non-teaching staff would serve to undermine the validity of the permit scheme overall and is contrary to current policy.”
Non-teaching staff at schools include receptionists, librarians and caretakers.
Cllr Ennis added: “Councillors agreed that non-teaching staff should be dealt with as discretionary business, that is what the team have been processing them under.
“We are all conscious of work and budget pressures, however, there are other wider considerations to be made.
“The overall policy of the Council is to reduce the reliance on the private car, which will in turn, reduce emissions.
“Again, pricing for parking permits is part of the strategy to achieve the council’s overall objectives of being carbon neutral by 2030.”
The exchange took place at the meeting on March 6.
Mr Dymond previously served as a Labour councillor.
