TRANSPORT chiefs are to be given the option of abandoning a controversial rising bollard scheme in York.

City councillors will be asked whether to take the drastic step, after 357 people objected to a plan to restrict access through the Straylands Grove estate.

But members will also have the option of overruling the objections and pressing ahead, or modifying the scheme which has caused so much concern in the Heworth area.

City of York Council officers have previously said a rising bollard - like that already found in Stonebow - is the best way to stop the streets being turned into a "rat run" by motorists seeking a short cut between Malton Road and Stockton Lane.

A postal survey conduced by the council last November showed that 70 per cent of residents in streets around Straylands Grove supported the bollard.

But the Evening Press reported in February that another survey, conducted by residents opposed to the scheme, showed 65 per cent of respondents were against a bollard.

The issue will come before councillors at a planning and transport meeting on April 6. A council report reveals that the authority has received petitions protesting at the order, and parish council leaders have also objected to the scheme.

While officers do not recommend abandoning the scheme, on the grounds that it would "merely delay dealing with a situation that cannot be avoided", they are considering modifying the order.

Proposed changes include reducing the hours of operation to Monday to Friday only.

Coun Ann Reid, the council's planning chief, said she welcomed the report.

She said: "Proposing changes to people's normal travel routes is always going to be controversial and the proposal for a rising bollard at Straylands Grove has been no exception."

"This report outlines the background and reasoning behind the original idea and explains why officers feel that the bollard will be needed at some time in order to manage traffic in the Heworth area.

"At next week's meeting, councillors will be looking very carefully to see if the case for a full-time bollard, or indeed any bollard, to be installed at this time has been made. My working assumption is that the status quo will apply unless an overwhelming feeling, in favour of change, is demonstrated over the next

few days and at the

meeting." Jean Frost, who lives in the Straylands Grove area and has campaigned against the bollard, urged councillors to listen to residents' views. She said: "Very few people in the area actually want it (the bollard). "What we would prefer is for them to wait and see how the traffic develops in the future rather than rush to do anything now."

Updated: 10:09 Friday, April 01, 2005