A family fun day staged at the Rare Breeds Centre, Ashford to promote children's road safety attracted hundreds of parents on Saturday.

The event staged by Ashford Rural Parent Forum aimed to attract new members to join the forum and also to promote a variety of road safety messages including the Parksafe campaign which aims to encourage parents to park safely in streets close to schools.

More than 600 people attended the day which started with activities including the popular Walking Bus road safety skill tests, Kent Circus School, cycle training, face painting and craft activities. Teams from KCC road safety, education and community safety attended to support the event.

In the afternoon the families were treated to free entrance to the Rare Breeds Centre.

KCC Extended Schools Manager Heather Goodchild helped co-ordinate the event. She said: "I am overhelmed at the number of families attending. This has been a fantastic success with many parents wanting to find out how they can join the parent forum and everyone taking great interest in the different road safety activities we staged."

Ten Ashford schools are currently promoting Parksafe. Children at the schools have designed posters to promote the road safety message and these are on view at www.kmwalktoschool.co.uk/parksafe where the public can vote for their favourites. The winning design at each school will be printed on a banner for that school.