A CONCERNED mother is calling for a major review of Droitwich’s car parking facilities in the hope of improving the number of parent and child spaces.

Mum-of-three Clair Shipway, aged 31, of Amphlett Way, Wychbold, has written to officers at Wychavon District Council calling for action.

Mrs Shipway believes Droitwich should be doing more to accommodate parents and children who have to park in the town centre and has started a petition to tackle the problem.

“I contacted Wychavon council to complain about the complete lack of parent and child spaces in the Droitwich pay and display car parks and the horrendous health and safety issues that I discovered as a result of this.

"I highlighted the fact that I had noticed that a proportionately high number of spaces have recently been made available for taxis.

“There is a large number of parents with small children in Droitwich who are desperate to be heard.”

In a letter to the council she said: “I feel the need to complain about the atrocious parking situation here in Droitwich town centre.

"I am infuriated as today I parked in town, and again, as has happened previously, I have had to leave my baby in the pushchair in the middle of the car park while I manoeuvre the car so I can open the door wide enough to put my baby in her car seat.

"There are absolutely no mother and baby spaces in the entire town centre.

"This means you cannot be guaranteed to park in a space and return to your car and be able to load your children back in safely. This is ludicrous.

“What irritated me further was that on closer inspection of the Morrisons car park, I noticed that nine spaces are dedicated to taxis directly outside the shop and only 12 for disabled, half of which are at the farthest point away from the shops, and absolutely none for mothers and babies.

“Us mothers are not after special treatment, we just want some extra wide spaces allocated so that we can safely load our children in and out of the car. Is that really too much to ask?”

Christine Baxter, the parking services manager at the council, said: “The only way we could provide parent and child parking spaces would be to reduce the overall number of parking spaces in the pay and display car parks.

"We are not aware of any demand for this type of parking place in the town and we do not believe that the loss of space would be in the interest of other users of the car parks.

“All of our car parks are well used by the public, with many being awarded park mark safer parking status, a scheme run by the British Parking Association on behalf of the Association of Chief Police Officers, so we are confident that all our car parks are operated safely.”

Anyone who wants to lend their support to the petition can contact Clair Shipway at droitwich.parentandchildspaces@yahoo.co.uk