YOUNGSTERS may have been exposed to dangerous asbestos dust after City of York Council staff took 11 months to act on warnings, an expert said today.

Emma Ramskill said she first spotted a pile of cement sheeting in a driveway off Thanet Road, Dringhouses, last December.

Emma, who is fully qualified in asbestos sampling and surveying, claimed she immediately realised the sheeting contained asbestos fibres and contacted City of York Council.

Concerned about the potential dangers to anyone inhaling even one fibre of asbestos dust, she expected the authority to take prompt action to ensure the sheeting was removed.

Those concerns grew in the hot and dry summer months, when there was an increased danger of the sheeting crumbling and potentially lethal fibres blowing into the air.

"I saw youngsters trying to skateboard down some sheets they had turned into a ramp. And when the wind was blowing, there was a danger of fibres being blown off the sheets and breathed in by people nearby."

She claimed she had phoned the council at least 15 times over the past 11 months, and also written on at least two occasions. It was only after she phoned the new York Pride hotline 551551 that some action was finally taken.

It is understood that a council employee went round to the house and warned the tenants of the potential dangers, and asked them to contact their landlord to ask him to remove it.

She said she worked for another local authority on compiling a register of buildings containing asbestos, and claimed that it cleared up asbestos items which had been dumped within ten days.

She said she was "not impressed" with York's response. "They should have taken action to ensure it was quickly and safely removed."

The landlord was asked a series of questions about the sheeting, including why it had been left on the driveway for so long, but he refused to comment.

The council said today that it took any potential public safety issues very seriously and would normally respond to queries of this nature as soon as possible.

"We are obviously disappointed that we have not acted upon Ms Ramskill's concerns sooner and would like to apologise to her," said a spokeswoman.

Because the material was on private property, the council had no real jurisdiction to remove it.

"However, one of our street environment officers has visited the house and, having spoken to the tenant, is trying to contact the owner to discuss removal of the material."

Updated: 09:06 Thursday, December 11, 2003