PUPILS have been told they will be punished if their parents keep picking them up from a bus bay outside a Kent school.

Keith Williams, head teacher of St Joseph Williamson’s Mathematical School, Rochester, has sent parents a newsletter explaining that pupils seen getting into cars parked in the bus bay will be kept in school the following day until parking restrictions finish at 3.30pm.

Teachers will keep watch as school ends to see which pupils and parents flout the rules.

In addition the registration numbers of illegally parked cars will be passed on to Medway Council and the police.

Mr Williams says a minority of selfish drivers put children's lives at risk by ignoring the parking restrictions outside the school in Maidstone Road. When asked to move they are either reluctant to do so or return to the bus bay within a few minutes.

Some parents even do U-turns in the middle of the already busy road.

Mr Williams said: "Newsletters and polite appeals to individual drivers were ignored so the time has come for a different approach to be adopted."

See Friday's Medway Messenger for the full story