A concerned neighbour fears construction work traffic at Whitley Bay High School is putting children at risk.
Graham Witherell, 70, who lives at Deneholm, is worried there could be a collision involving a child and the multi-tonne lorries needed for the work at the school to construct more modern buildings.
The current school will be partly demolished with the new buildings providing facilities such as a sports hall and sixth form lecture theatre, which should be ready for autumn 2023.
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Graham, a retired oil and nuclear facilities manager, said: "The problem is when you have these trucks coming down and parking at the school entrance between 8am and 9.30am, that's when parents will be dropping their kids off. I know the weight of these trucks and I know what the health and safety should be."
The street also leads to Valley Gardens Middle School. Graham added: "The two schools have around 2,500 pupils altogether and a lot of them don't take any notice of the traffic. There are hundreds of pupils using these routes and coming up from Monkseaton Drive.
"I've seen trucks attempt three-point turns at the school entrance during the start of the school day, or reversing up Deneholm or Valley Gardens. I've seen two drive down the footpath leading to Monkseaton Drive and end up reversing all the way back up while kids are going to school.
"When you see these things you think something is bound to happen, luckily nothing has. My main concern is that some kid is going to get hurt."
Graham continued, saying he understands the school needs refurbishing but still believes that lorries should only arrive after 9.30am in the interests of health and safety.
Ken Swaddle, on behalf of BAM, the construction company carrying out the works, said: "There should not be any lorries coming down Deneholm. We took utmost care in planning access and egress to the new facilities at Whitley Bay High School.
"We have instructed our suppliers accordingly, giving them the providing the correct route and explaining the reasons for not following the school’s postcode. We consulted the three local schools, Whitley Bay High School, Valley Gardens Middle School and Southridge First School so we understood their busy footfall and traffic times so that deliveries could be restricted between these times.
"We’ve placed two full-time traffic marshals at the site entrance gates on Monkseaton Drive to safely direct any site traffic and deliveries. This, plus safety barriers across the pedestrian pathway, covers any risk to the public and pupils in the area.
"I am confident all of our team are complying with the traffic instructions but I will ask the team to reinforce these to remind our sub-contractors that these instructions should be adhered to."
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Monkseaton North councillor Joe Kirwin said: "The rebuild of Whitley Bay High School is a wonderful thing and something we should be proud of. However, there should be no lorries coming down Deneholm.
"There is a major issue with traffic on that street as there is only one entrance and exit and there are a significant number of coming down there. The addition of construction traffic makes it so much more dangerous".
Steve Wilson, head teacher at Whitley Bay High School, said: “School safety is extremely important to us and we’re working with our contractors to ensure that the correct measures are in place to keep our pupils and school community safe during the ongoing construction work. Since the construction of our new school building started there has been no safety related incidents and alongside our contractor, we’ve proactively put measures in place so that this continues.
“We are trying to keep the impact on our local community to a minimum and would like to thank local residents for their patience during these works which will benefit our whole community and provide state-of-the-art facilities to students in the local area for generations to come.”
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