A community organisation is calling for the removal of speed bumps from their street, saying they cause hardship to residents with medical conditions.

Members of the Ravenscliffe and Greengates Association made the demand after they met to discuss the concrete speed reducers which lie across Ravenscliffe Avenue, on the Ravenscliffe Estate.

Only four years ago campaigners lobbied Bradford Council to install the traffic calming bumps after a number of serious accidents involving speeding cars raised concerns over safety, especially for children

But RGA secretary Audrey Raistrick said the bumps, which have spaces between them, were causing suffering for estate residents with medical problems by jolting them as they went over them.

"I suffer from a medical complaint which means I can't turn my neck sideways," she said. "If I'm travelling over the bumps it can be quite painful.

"Motorcyclists are also just driving straight through the humps and don't need to slow down, which defeats the object of the exercise.

"It's not a deterrent."

She favoured chicanes as an alternative, adding that it was the view of the association - which has 50 members - that the humps were a cheap and nasty way of dealing with the problem.

Spondylitis sufferer Faith Hudson, 43, who lives in Oakdale Drive, has to drive over the humps to get to her home.

She said: "We want rid of them. They don't do an awful lot for people with back problems which I suffer from. I think chicanes would be ideal."

But Bradford Council's highways sub-committee chairman councillor Phil Thornton ruled out the use of chicanes.

"Ravenscliffe Avenue is used by buses and the emergency services so a chicane would have to be designed to allow the free movement of large vehicles," he said.

"This means cars and motorcycles would be able to speed through much quicker, which would lead to more accidents, not less."

He added that before the traffic calming scheme an average of five people were injured of Ravenscliffe Avenue per year. Since the installation of the humps this had dropped to less than one person per year.

Eccleshill ward councillor Barry Midwood said: "If there's something better than the humps which dampens speed let's have a look at them. What the residents don't want to see, though, is the humps removed and the situation reverting back to what is was before.

"We have to measure the inconvenience of these humps to the individual against the protection they provide for everybody."

It is not the first time the RGA has campaigned to have the humps removed.

In 1995 the association said drivers were being pelted with stones by yobs as they slowed down to go over the humps and handed a 133-name petition to Bradford Council to have them removed.

But councillors voted against removal as the humps had substantially reduced car accidents on the road.

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