RYEDALE District Council is calling for a 20 miles per hour speed limit outside Settrington Primary School.
The demand came at last week's planning committee after councillors turned down an application to build two three-bedroom houses next to the school.
Cllrs Howard Keal and Keith Knaggs made the suggestion when they listened to the concerns of campa
igners who fear for pupils' safety.
The youngsters, aged between four and 11, have to regularly cross the road to reach the village hall for lessons and to wait by the roadside for the school bus.
Cllr Keal said: "It only takes one child to take one step at the wrong place at the wrong time and for one driver to be going down there too quickly."
In a letter to the committee, Jane Ramsden, chairman of the school's governors, argued the entrance to the school – "already recognised as a hazard" – would be worsened if the development went ahead, leaving the two new buildings and the school to share an entrance.
She said: "By attempting to solve the access problem the current proposal brings the danger closer to school with the same volume of traffic. With the proposed entrance the children are denied a clear footpath between the school and the village hall before they negotiate the dangerous crossing over the road on a bend."
Mrs Ramsden also said the layout and history of the village should be taken into consideration by the committee, adding the development "eats away at the integrity of the village".
The planning committee turned down the application, which had been submitted by the Birdsall Estate Company, on the grounds of the close proximity of the new buildings to the school and because they felt the houses were "out of keeping" with other properties in the village.
Councillors decided against rejecting the development on road safety grounds because the county council's highways department had offered no objections.
A council planning officer said such a decision would likely be overturned on appeal by the Government.
The committee then agreed to write to the county council asking for a lower speed limit and traffic calming measures to be introduced.
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