HATS off to those courageous and loving parents in Kirkbymoorside who want to protect their children crossing the road from dangerous speeding past schools.

There is a huge difference in survival rates from being hit at 30mph and at 20mph. Short of a blanket 20mph limit in all built up areas, it makes sense to limit speeds to 20mph around areas with the most children, and to put safe crossing areas with a combination of bumps, pelican and/or pedestrian crossings where there is a demand.

After all, what is more important, the life of the child crossing, or the rights of the car driver to be able to drive at a speed that can kill?

The shameful North Yorkshire County Council response means that you have to have the accidents you are trying to avoid in order to have measures to avoid those accidents. And whose child will be the sacrificial lamb before those measures are put in place?

Given the council’s intransigent public line, it appears inconsistent that Norton Primary School’s new and separate site for reception and Year 1 pupils did get a 20mph speed limit - maybe it would have looked just too bad to have the older ones with a 20mph limit but not the younger ones.

For 16 months we have been calling for a lower speed limit and pedestrian crossing in Horsemarket Road, in Malton, near the Kirkham Henry Performing Arts Centre.

Hundreds of children and elderly people a week need to cross this increasingly busy road and are terrified of the speeds of vehicles that fail to slow down enough coming off the A64/York Road route.

The executive at county need to sit up and listen to residents’ concerns on safety, before a child is knocked over.

Ian Conlan, chairman of West Malton Residents Group

Plastic production

AT the start of last month, as part of a survey, volunteers from the charity FIDRA were hunting for plastic pellets on the north shore of the Forth, at Queensferry, near the northern end of the Forth Road Bridge.

These “nurdles” are the base material for plastic products. In one day they collected 450,000 nurdles (the equivalent of 833 plastic bottles) from the beach. One wonders how many millions have not been washed up, and have continued out to sea.

Twelve miles upstream, on the opposite shore, sits INEOS’s plastic production plant at Grangemouth. INEOS uses the methane in fracked gas (tankered in from the US) to produce nurdles.

The incident was reported in the local press, and has lead to an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons.

Why should this particularly concern the people of Ryedale? INEOS holds most of the oil and gas exploration licences in our region, and is now approaching local landowners for permission to explore for shale gas to feed their plastic production.

S Jennings, Pickering

Looks at signs

IN reply to David Lloyd Williams’ comments on the traffic in Wood Street, he should take a walk along Wood Street and Beverley Road. He will see signs designating the speed to 20mph.

These signs have been up a considerable number of years.

I think children would be safer if traffic was prohibited during the starting times of school and also the finishing times of school.

Roger Wilson, Norton

Great support

RE Normanby Open Gardens, June 17. A massive thank you to everyone who came to the open gardens in our village.

Your support and generosity is much appreciated and we are delighted to report that a total of £518 was raised for Marie Curie.

Thank you once again.

Gillian Broadbent, Normanby

Thanks for help

ON the morning of Saturday, June 16, I tripped on a pavement slab in Parliament Street, York, outside the Halifax Building Society.

Thank you so much to all the lovely people who looked after me until the ambulance came. I was deeply touched with the caring and kindness you gave to me, and I want you all to know how much it was appreciated.

How lucky we all are to have our wonderful NHS - and thank you to my paramedics. How could I forget.

Brenda Lees, Thornton-le-Dale

Shop refill scheme

WELL done to Morrisons for starting to address the plastic waste problem.

But they should also think about providing facilities for customers to refill their own containers with various liquid and dry products. For example washing up liquid, shampoo, cooking oils, washing powder, etc.

There could be a dispenser beside each packaged product which could be measured in a similar way that we use the petrol pumps. Customers could also see the savings they are making.

Sue Elsey, Leppington