Residents living next to a busy Bradford road fear lives will be in danger unless action is taken quickly to ban parked cars causing congestion.

People whose homes overlook Woodside Road in Wyke say there have been three accidents in the past five weeks involving buses trying to squeeze past a line of parked cars.

They fear the problem will only get worse when Appleton Academy opens.

Julie Palczak, of Perseverence Street, said: “Our concerns are that there will be a fatality. Cars parked on the road at the moment belong to builders working on the new Appleton Academy, but when it opens it will be parents’ cars parked there.

“The new academy is five times bigger than the old school further down the road and there were enough parked cars then.”

Resident Allan Oliver said he had witnessed the latest accident on Tuesday afternoon, when a First bus clipped a van and sent it spinning round, knocking into parked vehicles.

“There’s just not enough room on the road. Lucky there wasn’t anyone in the van and cars this time, but who knows next time,” he said.

Academy principal Dwayne Saxton said: “We have worked with the Council to ensure that additional road safety measures have been put in place and will be operational when the Academy occupies our new building.”

Darren Badrock, Bradford Council’s principal highways engineer said measures included residents-only parking permits for roads adjacent to the Academy and double yellow lines outside the facility.

A First spokesman said: “We have been in touch with West Yorkshire Police and Bradford Council as a matter of urgency and have asked them to implement immediate parking restrictions at this location in order to avoid a serious accident.”