RESIDENTS near York are lobbying council chiefs to install a weight limit to ban lorries from passing through their village.

Parish councillors in Askham Bryan have appealed to City of York Council to put in the restriction to stop heavy vehicles using the village as a shortcut.

They say the signs should be introduced before a £3.5 million scheme to build a roundabout on the A1237 at Moor Lane goes ahead, and they have submitted a petition to call for the change.

Parish clerk Shirley Smith said: "There are big lorries coming through and half of the village is a dead end. Some of them go sailing down and struggle to turn around.

"We are fighting for it. The village really needs it. We have been trying for years."

Selby MP John Grogan has also backed the call, saying in a letter to council officers: "I am highly supportive of the arguments put forward by Askham Bryan Parish Council.

"Such weight limits have worked well elsewhere in my constituency, even where police have had limited resources to monitor them."

The village used to have a weight limit, but it was removed in the early 1990s by North Yorkshire County Council.

Since the village became part of City of York Council's area in 1996, it has been the authority's policy not to install weight restrictions that allow access to some heavy vehicles.

The issue will come before a meeting of the Executive Member for City Strategy Advisory Panel, on Wednesday.

But council officers have recommended no action be taken in response to the plea, citing council policy and saying a survey showed the number of lorries passing through the village is low. A letter to the parish council from Peter Evely, head of network management, said such restrictions were ineffective.

He said: "The reality is that right across the country these access only restrictions are virtually impossible to enforce.

"Within the city, we have 76 such restrictions - all introduced well before this council came into being. Only one can be said to have any degree of success and be regularly obeyed."

But Mrs Smith said: "We are saying why can't it work?'. If it stopped any lorries it would be worthwhile.

"The cost of a sign is practically nothing.

"This is our last chance. We are just asking for something that is going to cost hardly anything but it will have a real effect on the village."