A FATHER has told councillors how he and his family fled their York home in the middle of the night and slept in a lay-by to escape "obnoxious odours" from a contaminated site.

Alastair Robinson said he and his wife, Caroline, had been in genuine fear for the health of their young daughters, aged three and five, during decontamination work earlier this year at the heavily-polluted former gasworks site at Heworth Green.

He claimed they had suffered "stress, disruption and mental torture" during the work, which was intended to pave the way for housing development. They and their neighbours had also suffered from medical problems, ranging from sore throats to upper respiratory tract infections, and they feared some of the chemicals involved were carcinogenic.

He said it was vital that a series of major safeguards were put in place before any more decontamination work was allowed in the area by City of York Council.

Mr Robinson, of Dalguise Grove, spoke of his experiences in a letter to members of the planning committee, which will tomorrow consider an application for 306 homes and offices on neighbouring land.

He said: "It may be difficult for you to appreciate the level of panic we experienced at times while lifting our sleeping children out of their beds and hurriedly loading them into the car in the early hours of the morning, to run away from the strong, obnoxious odours which were now coming into our houses because of a change in the wind direction.

"As a concerned parent, I can assure you that this torture was very hard to bear. I would not wish this on anyone else, and I appeal to you to do your utmost to prevent us from having to experience this again."

He revealed that because sleeping in a lay-by was uncomfortable and unsafe, he had actually rented out a second property to bolt to.

Mr Robinson said he had asked for similar safeguards to ones he is now requesting at an earlier planning meeting in January, when the first phase of the decontamination project was up for consideration. He claimed the committee had agreed to those conditions, but the council had subsequently failed to impose them, and he had now complained to the Local Government Ombudsman about the matter.

A council spokeswoman said today: "The health and safety of local residents is a prime concern when looking at any planning application.

"We have been in regular correspondence with Mr Robinson over the past six months and our environmental protection officers have been closely involved in monitoring the development of the of the old gasworks site. Consultants specialising in the development of disused gasworks were employed at that time to ensure that the work was done correctly and to minimise and health and safety issues."

She said the committee would take a wide range of factors, including the concerns of residents, into account when assessing the outline application.

"If outline planning is granted, the council will expect the developers to put together detailed procedures to ensure the removal of contamination from the site and to ensure that local residents are protected from excess noise, odour and other pollution."

Updated: 10:38 Wednesday, November 24, 2004