RESIDENTS claim council bosses will make a bad situation worse at a traffic-clogged primary.

But education chiefs have hit back - saying parents should leave their cars at home and find new ways to travel.

Blairdardie Primary is being demolished and rebuilt in a different part of the same site.

Locals say the area is a nightmare at drop off and pick up times with parents double parking and blocking roads.

However, planners claim there is very little they can do to ease the situation.

Judith Fisher, who is finishing her tenure as councillor for Drumchapel and Anniesland, said: “I fought long and hard to secure a new building for Blairdardie Primary, but it has to work for the whole community.

“The new build is a chance to resolve longstanding parking issues locally, unfortunately the current proposal would exacerbate the existing problem.

“I am confident that our community can work with Education and Planning to get this right.”

A planning application for the new school is currently going through planning processes with Glasgow City Council.

Objections to the new school focus on parking with complaints there are only 20 parking spaces for a staff compliment of 40.

Eric Flack, secretary of Blairdardie and Old Drumchapel Community Council, said: “They are putting in a brand new school and there’s about 48 per cent of pupils who don’t live in the area and are coming by car.

“Parents park along Great Western Road and all around the streets there.

“They turn up from around 2pm and sit watching TV on portable devices while they wait.

“There are 30-odd staff and only 20 parking spaces for this new building. The school is a catering centre and so there are Brakes vans all the time needing to park as well.

“Drivers get up to all sorts of things - there are folk parking on the middle of roundabouts.

“This new school will only continue the problem as they don’t seem to have a planned drop off zone.

“It is absolute chaos.”

However, David McEwan, Estate Programme Manager for Education Services, insists all alternatives have been looked at and the onus is now on parents.

He said: “The City Plan 2 says we should be trying to encourage as many people as possible to use alternative forms of transport.

“When we construct a new building, one of the fundamental tenets is that we would only ever allow one space for every two permanent members of staff.

“So we don’t provide parking for everybody. That would be encouraging everyone to bring their car to work.

“As a principle, we need to be seen to be encouraging more sustainable forms of transport because we have a sustainability project that means we are trying to reduce emissions, reduce traffic, and to do that we apply City Plan 2.”

Currently, the Knightswood school has parking for five cars and two entrances to the school.

The new plans would increase this to 18 parking spaces, two disabled parking spaces and four pedestrian access points.

Mr McEwan said: “Context is really important here. We’ve got Great Western Road, a main artery of the city, and Blairdardie Drive, which is a relatively new road.

“Under the plans for the new school the entrance to the staff carpark is at Kearn Avenue. People will argue that’s a silly place to put it, on a bend, but bearing in mind this is the entrance to the staff car park.

“Staff park in the morning and the car is there all day and they leave at night. So this is a static car park. It is not for to-ing and fro-ing and it is not a drop off zone.

“Our colleagues in roads told us we cannot have a drop off point on Blairdardie Drive because it would very quickly back up on to Great Western Road.”

Mr McEwan said what is now needed is for parents to park more considerately.

He added: “We’re not making the situation any worse. We’ve been told that if we’re building a new school it’s an opportunity to make it better. Correct.

“But when you look at the site, we can’t unfortunately, because of the type of roads round about.

“If we create a drop off zone and spend money providing that then they would continue to park inconsiderately.

“The flow of traffic is concentrated to a very short window in the morning and again in the afternoon.

“There is no traffic flow system that can cope with that that’s not exorbitant.

“If it’s absolutely necessary to bring your car to drop of your child then do it a wee bit more considerately.”