A MOVE to have traffic banned outside a Central Fife primary school has been backed by councillors.

Parents and carers at Denend Primary School in Cardenden lodged a petition recently after witnessing several close calls with cars narrowly avoiding hitting children outside the school.

There have also been reports of staff members being sworn at and abused by motorists after trying to control traffic.

There have been a number of minor collisions between vehicles outside the school and now parents fear it is only a matter of time before someone is injured.

A petition calling for an exclusion zone outside the school was organised by Denend Primary Parent Council was presented to Cowdenbeath area committee last week.

Councillors have now agreed action must be taken to protect pupils, even if a Fife-wide policy is rejected in November.

Linda Erskine, Cardenden Labour councillor, said: “It’s a huge issue.

“We should not be waiting for an accident to happen before putting up our hands and saying we should have done something.”

Ms Erskine said the problem has been getting worse for a number of years.

She said: “We’ve had all sorts of visits by the police and while the police are there everything is fine.

“But we’ve had really angry exchanges with parents and we’ve had bumps between cars.

“There haven’t been any children hurt, thankfully. We’ve had children who have been pulled out of the way.”

Ms Erskine has asked council officers to prepare a report to implement a pilot school streets initiative in Cardenden.

While exclusion zones already exist elsewhere in Scotland, including Dundee, Perth and Angus, Denend would become the first in Fife if it gets the go-ahead.

The councillor added if it wasn’t enough to regulate behaviour, barriers many need to be put in.

Fife Council is currently preparing a report on the school streets initiative with a view to implementing a pilot scheme at one or more schools in Fife.

This would restrict traffic in certain streets near the affected schools but would exempt residents.

Phil Clarke, traffic management consultant, said the committee should wait until the outcome of discussions in November.

He said officers would need to consult residents, as well as police.

“It’s effectively a no entry and that’s enforced by Police Scotland and only Police Scotland,” he said.

Councillor Erskine responded by saying the committee would not be willing to wait.

She said: “We have a need now and we’re in favour of resolving it as soon as possible.”

Auxi Sousa, a member of the parent council, said she was delighted something would be getting done.

“The support is amazing and we can’t believe something is finally going to be done,” she said.