THE daughter of an asbestos victim today condemned York's failure to build a memorial to him and scores of other former carriageworks employees.

Kathryn McKellar, who lost her father, John, to the asbestos-related cancer mesothelioma when she was 25, said: "There should be a memorial to remember the victims.

"There are memorials to people who lost their lives in war, but nothing for all the people who have died because they worked at the York Carriageworks. It is a betrayal."

She added: "It would be nice to have somewhere to take my eight-year-old daughter, Emily, and tell her about the granddad she never knew."

She said York MP Hugh Bayley had pressed in the 1990s for a memorial after consulting with the families of victims and union representatives.

The MP wrote to City of York Council in 1997, saying that all those who responded had been very much in favour of a memorial, although only two had supported the idea of including the names of victims.

He said: "I hope it will be possible for you to incorporate this proposal in the plan - perhaps as a distinct part of a more general commemoration of the carriageworks itself."

Mrs McKellar, whose father died in the 1990s, aged 53, after working as a coachbuilder, also spoke of her anger that she and other families had not been invited to the opening last year of Holgate Arch, a public artwork built to commemorate the craftsmanship and heritage of the carriageworks.

However, she said she did not agree with other relatives of asbestos victims who called recently for the arch to be turned into such a memorial, for example by inscribing the names of victims on it.

She felt a separate memorial should be created on a different site, such as the grassy area near the main carriageworks buildings further along Holgate Road.

A council spokesman said today there had been extensive community consultation before the arch had been built, including discussions with local people, former carriageworks employees and widows of workers who had died. He said relatives of victims had been opposed to putting names on the memorial for a number of reasons, including the need to keep adding names over many years to come.

He added that 150 long-serving former carriageworks employees and widows had been invited to the opening of the arch last year.

Updated: 09:58 Saturday, March 19, 2005