INCONSIDERATE parents hastily parking their cars as they collect their children from a Worcester school are risking youngsters' lives, a city man claims.

Paul Ward, who lives in Mill Street, near King's St Alban's Junior School, maintains that parents on the school run cause dangerous congestion.

"One day someone's going to come down this road and hit a child because they won't be able to see them with all these parked cars," said the 31-year-old.

"Every day at around 3.30pm, the parents come to pick their children up and they park along here, blocking all of the road.

"It's ridiculous. I've even got a ticket because I can't park outside my own house. It's a narrow road and people are just abandoning their cars along here."

However, the headmaster of King's St Alban's maintained that the problem was not just caused by parents.

"It's a very mixed residential and industrial area and at peak times of the day there are more cars than the area can really take," said Richard Bellfield.

Meanwhile, city council officers said there was nothing else that could be done to ease the problem.

"Every year we get a new influx of parents to the school and this issue raises its ugly head," said Tom Comerford, senior engineer with the Worcester Transportation Partnership.

"It's an old problem, because if it's not the parents parking then it's the sixth-form pupils parking their cars."

The issue was tackled about 10 years ago, when zig-zag lines were painted on the ground near the school to discourage people parking there, explained Mr Comerford.

"The zig-zag markings prohibit parking, waiting or loading at times when the school is operating," he added.

"If someone parks on the lines and then collects a child, or even if they just keep their engine running, they are taking a substantial risk.

"If there was an incident I think the police would take a very dim view, as would their own insurance company."