A PRAYER vigil by by anti-abortion campaigners at a York clinic was set to finish yesterday, November 1 - but neighbours want a 'safe zone' created outside the health centre before the protestors return in the Spring.

A ‘40 Days For Life’ vigil was staged every day outside the currently closed British Pregnancy Advisory Service clinic in Wenlock Terrace, off Fulford Road.

One resident said the presence of the vigil has caused people living on the street to lose weight, experience night terrors and break down in tears.

More than 2,000 people signed a petition calling for the council to create a public space protection zone outside the clinic to stop the prayer vigil.

One resident told councillors she had experienced an abortion and was not sure if she could have gone ahead with it if there had been protestors outside the health centre where she had the procedure.

The woman, who The Press has chosen not to name, told a meeting: "I get regularly scared walking past big groups of lads on a Saturday night in York with the fear of being harassed, so I can't even begin to imagine how scared I'd be walking into the clinic with big groups on either side surrounding me."

Tom Shillito, who started the petition for a safe zone, said to councillors: "The protest by the anti-abortion group is causing serious distress on a daily basis to residents on Wenlock Terrace, not only to those with direct experience of abortion services but also to countless others, many of whom are working from home.

"For former abortion service users in the area, this protest is dredging up extremely painful memories which they hope to leave in the past.

"One resident has reported weight loss through the stress and anxiety of seeing these people every day. Another's been experiencing night terrors and several have been reduced to tears on numerous occasions."

Another resident told the meeting: "[The anti-abortion protestors] could confine their prayers to their homes or their church, but they have chosen to invade a space where they can intimidate, interfere and influence people seeking abortion."

Organisers of the protest have previously told The Press ‘40 Days for Life’ was a peaceful, socially distanced prayer campaign - with the majority of participants women - which sought the end of abortion and was being staged outside the clinic because it had been the location of abortions.

The vigil organisers claimed the petition is trying to infringe a legal right to pray in a public place, and say it is "powerfully meaningful" to pray outside a clinic where possibly hundreds of abortions have occurred.

Cllr Aisling Musson presented the petition to the council at a full council meeting on Thursday night.