By Nathan Duke
Staff Writer

Students who drive to Goffstown High School can look forward to better chances of finding a place to park this year, following the addition of new parking spaces at the school.

School Superintendent Darrell Lockwood said the high school will be creating about 30 to 40 new parking spaces and hopes they will be ready for the first day of school on Friday, Sept. 2.

Student parking was an ongoing problem during the last school year, causing a number of students to get up early to vie for one of the school’s 185 available spaces. The remaining 150 spaces at the school are reserved for faculty and handicapped spaces.

The school has about 1,300 students and, by the end of each year, nearly half of them are able to drive.

During the past school year, a number of students resorted to parking on Wallace Road, which caused residents on the road to complain to police. In early May, the selectmen enacted an ordinance that prohibits students from parking within a half-mile radius of the school during school hours – 7 a.m. and 3 p.m.

Police Chief Michael French said about six to eight students were ticketed during the week after the ordinance passed, but parking problems on Wallace Road soon subsided.

“It is interesting – they all found places to park that are all legal,” he said.

However, French said he believes there is a need for more than 30 to 40 new spaces at the school.

“There aren’t enough new spaces,” he said. “Before the ordinance went into effect, there were about 80 cars parking in hazardous conditions on Wallace Road.”

Goffstown High School Principal Frank McBride said he is pleased the school is getting additional space and is optimistic there could be more than the planned 30 to 40 spaces.

He said it is possible that more spaces could possibly be added in the future.

“My analogy is Fenway Park. People said you couldn’t add new seats,” he said. “There is always potential room to add space.”

John E. Neville Excavation and Maine Drilling and Blasting have begun work on the parking lot and school officials hope to have the spaces ready before school starts.

The construction firm will also expand the school’s athletic fields, said McBride.

“We are very happy we will be gaining additional field space,” he said.

However, McBride said the new field space will not likely be usable until late spring or fall 2006.