The Olive School in Preston forged new friendship s after naughty parents blocked neighbouring business, Sika Liquid Plastics, car park

Pupils at Preston’s Olive School are reaping the rewards of their mums and dads failing to park in the right spaces.

The school is next to Sika Liquid Plastics, which houses the research and development centre for the company’s UK business, along with offices, manufacturing for its products and a training centreRandom bad parking was causing problems for the firm,but, instead of reading the riot act the two have become allies.

Executive principal of the primary school, Dawn Forshaw said: “Our connection with Sika began when we were experiencing issues with parents parking on the road rather than in the allocated spaces on the Mercer Street car park, because this was creating problems for Sika’s vehicle movements and posing a safety threat to our students.

“We wanted to address the issue in positive and creative way so we decided to launch a joint safety campaign, inviting the children to design road safety and anti-bullying posters and discuss safety with their parents at home. The response was fantastic and we invited Sika to select the winners alongside our own team.

“We’re really fortunate to have such a diverse and progressive global business so close to us and today’s visit was to reward the winners for their efforts and continue the mutually-beneficial process of forging links between our school and Sika.”

A group of future scientists, chemists, engineers and customer service advisers were treated to a tour of the plant. Sika’s operations manager, Lisa Baines said: “The children were so well-behaved and excited to learn what we do here on site and we were delighted to be able to give them a first-hand experience of a real workplace.”