COUNTY council plans to turn a former school into 13 new homes have been slammed for “putting children’s lives at risk for profit”.

More than 50 people have objected to Forest planners about proposals for the old St White’s Primary buildings beside the new school in Cinderford, backed by a 52-name petition and two parish councils.

They all claim that site owners Gloucestershire County Council (GCC) should include off-street parking to drop and pick up children, and road widening at the bottle neck entrance to Buckshaft Road.

Cinderford Town Council says youngsters’ lives are being put in danger by GCC cashing in on the publically-owned asset.

And in a letter to planners, council clerk Lynda Thomas said it was “appalling” that the county council had failed to provide off-street parking, as agreed in the 2014 approved plan for the new school.

Two housing plans have been submitted by GCC, one for full permission for five homes on the site of the old main school building, and another for outline permission for eight homes on the former canteen site on the other side of Buckshaft Road.

Mrs Thomas said: “The current application for the construction of eight houses, completely takes away the opportunity of GCC providing the off-street parking area as referred to in the current planning permission, and the application for the conversion of the old primary school is not addressing the issue of the narrow road causing a bottle neck at the entrance to Buckshaft Road.”

She claimed increased traffic created a “real issue of safeguarding very vulnerable children” walking to school.

Town councillors urged planners to visit the site at school opening and closing times to see the “absolute chaos” which already exists outside the school, she added.

Ruspidge and Soudley Parish Council backed the calls for road widening and drop-off points, and accused GCC of making a cash grab from existing buildings which “should be used for the benefit of the local community”.

Members of the St White’s Farm Estate Residents Community have also raised concerns, pointing to a police radar survey logging “nearly 1,900 school journeys each week through the dead-end residential estate.”

They say the plan for the new school had promised “a purpose-built entrance off Buckshaft Road which provides off-street parking to enable parents/guardians to drop and pick up pupils,” but it hadn’t been provided and wasn’t included in the new plans.

The situation was “dangerous” for residents and pupils, and the group accused GCC of “delinquency and breach of planning” in failing to act.

Resident Nicola Packer said “narrow pavements are thronged with children” at school drop-off and pick-up times, and parked cars reducing the road width to one lane saw vehicles mounting the kerb to get by.

Extra homes would “add to this mayhem”, she told planners, and it was “imperative that ample and proper drop-off provision for parents” was provided.

“The county council should be ashamed to put forward such a scheme that so blatantly ignores the right of the local community to have their wellbeing considered in any planning application,” she said.