A HEADTEACHER fears the safety of pupils could be at stake as work gets under way to repair a damaged house near his school.

Three-way traffic signals started operating at the junction near the European School at Culham on Monday to allow the repairs to be made to a cottage that was almost demolished earlier this year.

But headteacher Simon Sharron said he was concerned the works, due to last three weeks, would cause traffic chaos to the end of the school day.

The school had asked for the works, to repair a porch at 60 Thame Lane, to be delayed until the summer holidays.

Mr Sharron said the property, situated on the edge of the busy A415, had been severely damaged after vehicles had collided with it on three separate occasions.

He said: “The recent serious collisions, together with the resultant disruption the repairs to the nearly demolished house will cause, heighten the urgency for better traffic management in the area. The safety of our pupils, residents and all local road users is at stake.”

But, the school was told it was not possible to delay the works as the cottage owners had waited long enough for them to start.

Steve Phillips, area network co-ordinator for Oxfordshire County Council, said: “I believe it is not safe for the owners to live there and they have been waiting for some months for the work to be done.”

The county council, which approved the use of the signals, said they would be in operation between 9.30am and 4pm, avoiding the morning rush-hour traffic but not the end of school.

Mr Phillips said: “The signals will be manually operated between 3pm and 4pm to ensure minimum disruption is caused to all road users, including school traffic exiting Thame Lane.”

He said: “In order for the works to be carried out the builders doing the work need to have one lane of the carriageway closed which requires the temporary traffic lights.

“The property needs major reconstruction.”

Mr Phillips said: “We have looked very carefully at the timings and we are confident the manually-controlled signals will be phased accordingly and it should all run smoothly.”

The lights are due to remain in place until June 5.

The school will be on half-term all next week.

Gill Brook, school secretary, said parents had been written to warning them of the work.

She said: “There have been at least three incidents involving vehicles and the cottage this year.

“The first one involved a car wiping out the porch. In the second, a car ended up in a tree and a third one happened some weeks later.

“Until we experience the first couple of days, we won’t know how it will affect us.

“We wanted it to be delayed until July when there would be about 1,000-plus less people around.”