PRESSURE is mounting on a council to create more 20mph zones across England’s largest county, following claims it has a haphazard approach to protecting children.

As North Yorkshire County Council released figures showing the number of casualties in road collisions had fallen for the seventh year in succession, there were cross-party calls for further action to address safety concerns.

The calls follow Councillor Mike Jordan, who leads the authority’s transport, economy and environment overview and scrutiny committee, pressing the council to introduce lower limits off main roads in villages “to save children’s lives”.

He said the cost of creating the extra 20mph zones would be far less of a burden to the public purse than the costs associated with children who have been killed or seriously injured.

The council’s leaders have raised doubts about whether such a scheme could be policed, but tensions between residents and the authority over the issue reappeared at a meeting of the council’s Thirsk and Malton constituency committee.

Road safety campaigners questioned why a 20mph speed limit and other pedestrian safety measures had been created outside Norton Primary School, while no such measures were being implemented at other sites where children’s safety was a concern in the area.

One resident told the meeting, due to the amount of housebuilding, action was needed “before a serious accident or a series of serious accidents take place”.

In a written response to the meeting, a council spokesman said sites with a high number of collisions were prioritised, but if the appropriate solution at a site was beyond the budget available it would be added to the authority’s reserve list.

The spokesman said: “Sites without a personal injury collision history are not a high priority and are unlikely to receive funding for improvements.”

The spokesman said it was also promoting road safety in schools and colleges and was running several road safety schemes, such as the Drive Alive and Learn and Live programme.

However, Councillor Lindsay Burr told the meeting the authority’s approach towards children’s safety on roads was inconsistent.

She said: “The county should have a blanket approach across the county regarding the safety of children. Children wherever they are should be afforded the same reliability that people understand there is a school.

“I have been working on this for three years and I am disappointed. If we didn’t say it was about finance, but about children’s safety, that is something we could all work towards.”

Councillor Keane Duncan added there were perceived vehicle speed issues in numerous wards that were not being resolved.

He said: “We do have a speed protocol which is consistent across the county which works with the police. Perhaps we need to discuss that to see how we can get the best out of it. We need to see how we can maximise that across the entire county.”

The council’s latest road collisions figures show while the number of injury collisions on North Yorkshire’s roads in 2017 fell by nine per cent to 1,428 compared with the previous year, the number of people killed in road collisions rose from 28 in 2016 to 41 last year.

The council highlighted that 2016 had the lowest number of fatalities since 1990 and the 2017 figure was in line with the five-year average.