Preschool management committee president Sue Lane said: ``We're very frustrated because the commonsense thing to do is give us enough land for a reasonable amount of off-street parking''.

Instead, the Government said Camden Council would have to pay market value for the land it wished to take over for use as a 10-spot car park for the preschool.

Ms Lane said parents struggled daily to find street parking after the department ordered them off the land they had been using as a makeshift car park.

``Since then we have been campaigning for some of that land but so far common sense has flown out the window,'' she said.

Education Minister Verity Firth said the department would accept the council's boundary adjustment proposal supported by Camden MP Geoff Corrigan ``but only on the basis that a market value is paid for the land''.

The council's director of development and environment, Sue Morris, said there was no money in the council's budget to buy the land.

She said other options were being explored including a land swap involving a bus bay on Crookston Drive that would become redundant because the department's land wouldn't be used for a school.

The department originally planned a school on the land. It is now pursuing Planning Department approval for a 48-lot housing estate.