A MOTHER says that selfish parents are endangering the health of her asthmatic son in a parking free-for-all outside a school.

Sue Hedges said indiscriminate parking by parents on the school run at St Mary's Primary School, in Darlington Road, Richmond, also puts other youngsters' lives at risk.

Since waiting areas for school buses were provided at neighbouring Richmond School and St Francis Xavier School, parents at St Mary's, which is between the two high schools, have used the former bus turning circle for parking.

"This turning circle is now up for grabs and parents are turning into it and parking anywhere they want - over the yellow lines, over the zig-zags and on the pavement," said Mrs Hedges.

She said the problem had got so bad that she had difficulty dropping her seven-year-old son, Jack, at school.

She said Jack, who has chronic asthma, struggled to breathe in cold weather and had to be driven right to the school door in winter.

"In the summer, Jack can walk to school, but as the winter comes on, he is more and more unable to go out," said Mrs Hedges, of Whitefields Drive, Richmond.

"The school and the headteacher have been very accommodating and said that I can drive him directly to the door in winter, when he is unwell.

"But I am very worried that I won't be able to do that because the route is completely overcrowded with cars."

She said she was also concerned that children had to cross between moving vehicles and could be run over.

"The whole area is insane," she said.

A spokesman for North Yorkshire County Council said discussions with highways officers and the police about the problem were continuing.

One solution could be to paint allocated parking bays on the former turning circle, which would require planning permission.

"We are looking at ways of improving traffic management and we are talking to the school and to the highways department, which owns the former turning circle," he said.

The council encouraged pupils to bus, cycle and walk to school where practical and urged parents to drop children off a few hundred yards from the school gates to ease congestion.