Parents' parking blocks ambulance from Bridgnorth care home during emergency

The incident happened when parents believed to be from St Leonard's Church of England Primary School and St John's Catholic Primary School – both off Innage Lane – blocked the driveway to Innage Lane Care Home.

Both schools were contacted about the event, which took place during the end of school at about 3pm on July 1.

St Leonard's Primary School headteacher Kay Ferriday said it was an isolated incident and people were usually "very considerate".

"This type of incident has not happened before. Hopefully it won’t happen again. The public is usually very considerate,” she said.

In a letter to parents addressing the parking, Mrs Ferriday said: "The manager from Innage Lane Care Home has been in touch with me. Apparently they had an incident where an emergency ambulance could not get down the driveway at around 3pm because of cars being parked partly on the pavement and at the side of the pavement.

"They believe that some of these cars may have belonged to parents from our school and/or St John’s.

"Also, in addition to the parking on the driveway there have been cars parked in their car park and often some cars are parked inconsiderately on Innage Lane, which makes exiting their driveway dangerous at times.

"Obviously their car park and driveway are private property which needs 24-hour emergency access, so please could I ask that everyone is mindful of this and helps support the staff there."

West Midlands Ambulance Service said every second delay could be vital.

A spokeswoman said: “It is hugely disappointing that members of the public think it is acceptable to park on a road whereby access for emergency service vehicles would be restricted.

“We would hope it would be common sense to people to avoid parking in places where an emergency service vehicle is unable to safely pass. You can never predict when or where an ambulance is going to require access past your vehicle or down your road.

“Inconsiderate parking can have the potential to delay our crews reaching a patient or conveying them to hospital. In the worst case scenarios, every second that a crew spends trying to navigate around poorly parked vehicles, is a second where they are not receiving the treatment they require.

“Before deciding to park down a residential road, we urge people to stop and think how they would feel if it was their family member who was delayed in getting treatment because of inconsiderate parking.”

St John's Catholic Primary School were contacted for comment.

Shropshire Fire and Rescue service has also urged residents to park more considerately after crews struggled to navigate their way through part of Bridgnorth.