Campaign launched to clamp down on poor parking in Market Drayton

Market Drayton police and the town's fire service have joined forces to launch the campaign after receiving complaints that emergency vehicles would struggle to get down some streets due to inconsiderate parking.

The complaints relate to poor parking in the town and claims that the issue is potentially putting lives at risk because it is slowing down emergency services responding to calls.

Constable Alan Ambrose, of Market Drayton Police Station, said: "On Tuesday, Market Drayton safer neighbourhood team along with Market Drayton Fire Service carried out a joint operation.

"The operation consisted of the fire service working alongside us, this is due to us getting a number of complaints from residents that live in a number of streets in and around Market Drayton.

"The concerns from the residents are mainly parking in the streets and they have concerns about getting emergency service vehicle’s down the streets they live on.

"We are trying to promote safer and better parking so that emergency vehicles can get into the streets as quickly and as safely as possible.

"We do not want you to park your vehicle where it would stop a fire engine, ambulance or other emergency vehicle from getting through to assist other residents.

"By doing this it could assist any of our emergency teams getting to someone much quicker and this could save one of your neighbours life or possible your own.

“We have drafted up a poster which we are in the process of using and advising if these issues exist.”

The poster shows a picture of a fire engine trying to squeeze past two parked vehicles on a street.

It is captioned: “People are dying to park outside their homes – don’t let someone die because you wanted to!”

It comes after people in Market Drayton were warned last week about not using the town's fire station as a place to turn their vehicles around.

A statement on behalf of the fire service said: "Can we ask that you do not use our fire station as a place to turn your vehicle around or even worse to pull up across the front of it to take a mobile phone call or drop someone off?

"The fire station at Market Drayton is staffed by personnel who are on call 24/7 from their place of work or home, and respond to the station when paged for an emergency call. We have only five minutes from the time of an emergency call being received by our fire control to getting the fire appliances mobile to the incident.

"Any delay caused by members of the public using the station for their advantage could lead to us failing to meet our response time but more importantly getting to someone who really needs our help as quickly as possible and could mean the difference between life and death."

On one day last week at least 12 vehicles used the station to turnaround in, with two vehicles stopping to drop people off.

"Please can we ask that a little more thought is given to finding a more suitable location," the statement added.