VILLAGERS who risk their lives each time they want to catch a bus have high hopes that they have won the first of two battles to get a better deal.

The residents of Crambeck, alongside the A64, have become so exasperated that they have put up a makeshift shelter to give them some protection, as they wait for a bus.

But hopes of a better shelter were raised when County Coun Clare Wood pressed the county highway team and Highways Agency officers to give the scheme priority.

She is also urging the agency to investigate the possibility of building a traffic island.

“They are both vital for the residents of Crambeck,” said Coun Wood. “The A64 is a fast, busy road, especially at this point where traffic comes off the dual carriageway at Welburn crossroads, often at speed. A shelter is essential because this bus stop is well used by young people going to schools in Malton, and by many Crambeck residents, particularly older people.”

She has been given a strong indication by the county council that a new shelter is on the drawing board.

Coun Wood, who has been a long-standing campaigner for improvements to the A64, said she was also anxious to see an early go-ahead for a traffic island.

Four years ago the Crambeck Management Company, which runs the village, provided a bus shelter on the York-bound side of the A64.

Since then the company along with Welburn Parish Council and Coun Wood have been pressing for a shelter on the opposite side of the road, said Peter Sellar, parish councillor, director of the management company and secretary of the residents’ association.

He said: “Children have to stand out in all weather waiting for a bus. When our pleas for a shelter on the York side of the road came to nothing we built our own shelter, a modified garden shed. But one is desperately needed on the other side of the road, as is a traffic island.

For 84-year-old Philip Irving crossing the road is such a nightmare that he dare not attempt it. He said: “It is high time something was done. We have had to put with no shelter or traffic island for years and the traffic has got faster and heavier.”

Margaret Miller, 76, added: “Whitwell and Kirkham also have shelters yet we have been overlooked. I got drenched recently while waiting for a bus and the children have often had to go to school in wet clothing because of the lack of a shelter.

“We desperately need a traffic island because there have been a number of accidents in this area and we fear that one of our residents will be a victim because crossing the A64 is an unbelievable nightmare.”

A spokesman for the Highways Agency said: “We are looking at the bus stops on the A64 but it is too soon to be specific as to what action we will take.

“There are several bus stop sites and we have to decide where best the money can be spent.”