RESIDENTS living near a Wrexham school are angry as parking and transport is clogging up their roads, a councillor has claimed.

But the problem is not parents dropping off their children - the issue is teachers and other school staff are parking their vehicles outside people's homes all day.

The problem is made worse by taxis and minibuses dropping off and picking up children from St Christopher's School - with some, it is claimed, arriving up to two hours before school ends for the day.

Hermitage County Councillor Graham Rogers has worked for several years to address what he described as the ongoing "saga" of parking and traffic issues on roads around St Christopher's.

He said: "I've been on this for what must now be the best part of three-and-a-half years.

"The problem is that school staff are parking in Stockwell Grove and naturally it's now gone to them parking on Norman Road as well."

Cllr Rogers said residents are "unhappy" because the issue means they can't park outside their own homes in the day and it causes congestion at drop-off and pick-up times.

He said: "Staff are parked there from 8am until about 3.30pm or 3.45pm - and there is also an abundance of taxis dropping pupils off and picking them up.

"The afternoon is, as I see it, the main problem because these taxis are rolling up not 10 or 20 minutes before school finishes; some are parking up there from 1.30pm onwards.

The Leader: Stockwell Grove (Google) and, inset, Cllr Rogers (WCBC)Stockwell Grove (Google) and, inset, Cllr Rogers (WCBC) (Image: Google/WCBC)"And because you have all the staff parking kerbside, you then have minibuses parking alongside them which more or less takes them over the central reservation.

"Cars travelling up the road are having difficulties on account of all of these vehicles.

"And then you have a bus service which comes down as well - basically, it's a mess.

"We've had numerous meetings but have got nowhere."

He added that the latest idea to address the problem is installing zig-zags to prevent staff from parking in certain areas, potentially during school time.

"That would free it all up," he said.

"But it's to see if it would achieve anything. Personally, I don't believe it will.

"I firmly believe all it will do is move the problem elsewhere.

"If we were to put double yellows there, people of today don't take a blind bit of notice - they'll just park on it.

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"There's ample room on the school field to get all these cars parked.

"I've advocated that from day one, but for whatever reason it has never happened."

In December, Cllr Rogers handed a 300-signature strong petition to Wrexham Council on behalf of residents have have either already been affected by the problem, or may be in the future.

He is to meet a council officer at the site this morning (Thursday) to continue discussions about what can be done.

Wrexham Council was approached for comment.