A councillor has called parents who drive their children to school instead of walking "lazy" and "bone idle".

Dawn Barnett said they should be walking to give their children more exercise and tougher sanctions should be taken against parents who blocked the road outside schools.

Councillor Barnett, a Conservative member of Brighton and Hove City Council, said: "People drive to school because they're too bone idle to walk. It's a safety hazard and it causes congestion.

"Kids need more exercise and it would help a lot if they walked to school or if their parents parked a short distance from school and walked the rest."

From September, parents who park illegally face instant fines in a move by the council to stop selfish and dangerous parking.

Coun Barnett said the problem was particularly bad at Goldstone Primary School in Laburnum Avenue, Hove, where some parents had ignored repeated requests to park sensibly or leave their cars at home.

She said: "In the mornings parents drive very slowly down the road and wait for a space for their children to jump out. In the afternoons they are parking on zig-zagged areas, double yellow lines and even on roundabouts while they sit in their cars waiting for the kids."

The councillor said that any ambulance or fire engine trying to pass at school closing time would be unable to squeeze through the traffic.

Last week the driver of a hearse on the way to a funeral had been forced to ask drivers outside the school to move to allow him to get past.

Coun Barnett said: "They are endangering kids just to save themselves a few minutes. One day soon a child will be killed."

Goldstone's headteacher Chris Pearson said some parents of his 340 pupils drove to school when they did not need to drive.

He said: "It can get chaotic and dangerous when people are not thoughtful. We regularly ask people to park sensibly but some parents are not listening."

From September, drivers leaving vehicles in the no parking areas outside 43 of Brighton and Hove's schools from 8.30am to 9.30am and 2pm to 4pm will be given fixed penalty notices of £60.

Environment councillor Gill Mitchell said: "With increasing numbers of cars searching for parking spaces people are now starting to take risks with schoolchildren's safety.

"Usually these drivers are parents themselves and we're trying to get across the message such behaviour is putting their own children at risk."