A RESIDENT says he was punched by a mum dropping her child at school in a row over parking.

Paul Hicken lives opposite Bridport Primary School on St Andrew's Road and last week frustrations over the 'nightmare' traffic situation boiled over.

Mr Hicken said a parent refused to move her car he said was blocking his drive and when he went to take a picture she tried to punch the phone from his hand.

Mr Hicken said: "It is absolutely horrific out there.

"The police have told me to take photos of registration numbers so I did. As I was taking the photo she ran up behind me and tried to punch the phone out of my hand. As I saw her I turned and her fist caught me right across the face."

Mr Hicken said no-one was taking responsibility for the problem - neither the school, the council or the police.

He said parents were supposed to park in the Co-op.

He said: "The parents are too lazy. They have total disregard for anybody up there.

"I have to put barriers on one of my drives to stop them coming in, there are notices do not obstruct but they take no notice.

"They've closed the school car park because of this type of behaviour but they just put it out on the street."

Head Debbie Brown is well aware of the problem and has tried to educate parents and encourage them to use the Co-op car park.

In a newsletter to parents she said: "I am more than a little shocked at the unbelievably bad behaviour of some of the people dropping children off and picking up children from school each day.

"Local residents regularly complain to me about the abuse they receive when they ask parents not to park outside their homes or across driveways or to slow down. The local police have once again been alerted to this behaviour by our neighbours, quite rightly so."

Mrs Brown told the Echo with more than 400 children the car park was simply too small to be used by parents.

She said:"Most parents behave very well.

"However there are always those small number of parents who just think it is ok to park wherever they like and when they are asked to moved out of the way they just get really cross.

"I don't know how you police that.

"Our neighbours must just despair most of the time because their houses cars are always parked outside their houses."

She said she does call the police on occasion to do spot checks but it is just a temporary fix.

Dorset County Council's traffic manager Simon Gledhill said: "The demand for parking in and around schools has always been high. There will also be high demand and potential conflict between parents doing the school run and local residents.

"We would always ask parents to be considerate when parking in residential areas and not to park on any yellow line restrictions..

"Where possible we'd encourage parents to try alternative forms of transport such as walking and cycling to school."

A spokesman for Birdport Police said they were investigating the incident outside the school.