A LEADING parish and city councillor has renewed calls to improve a crossing over a stretch of the A19 after two neighbouring developments for more than 100 homes and caravans were proposed.

Cllr Joe Watt, chairman of Skelton Parish Council, says he supports separate plans for 60 homes on the former Del Monte site, and an 80-pitch proposal for touring caravans, motor homes and tents at Skelton Park Golf Course.

However, he has rejected ideas from the developers leading the Del Monte site regeneration to install a toucan crossing - which is for both pedestrians and bicycles and uses on-crossing detectors - and reduce the speed limit to 40mph, as he claims it does not do enough to address safety concerns.

Other councillors agreed with the parish council's warning at City of York Council's last planning committee meeting, and a decision was made to defer the Shipton Road plans on safety grounds.

Cllr Watt is now urging developers to produce plans which properly protect new residents and install a pelican crossing. Unlike toucan crossings, these feature a set of traffic lights facing oncoming traffic, a push button for pedestrians, with two illuminated pictograms in red or green to show if it is safe to cross.

He said: "We don't have a problem supporting the developments we just want a better crossing than proposed.

"In Skelton the main problem is that people on this side of the A19 should be the main concern as many people wouldn't be able to go into the village amenities.

"The problem is the busy A19 from York which gets a lot of heavy traffic and, particularly if you have got a lot of young children, it could be very intimidating when large lorries thunder by."

Other councillors also raised concerns about the planned crossing at the meeting, as previously reported in The Press.

Cllr Nigel Ayre said: "I'm not entirely convinced anyone in a wheelchair would stand a chance of getting across Shipton Road or someone with a visual impairment who needs to touch the bottom of the toucan crossing to know whether it was there or not would have no chance of getting across."