PENSIONER Fred Rycroft has called for clearer street signs after an ambulance crew spent an hour looking for his house.

Mr Rycroft, 75, was told by doctors at York District Hospital that he was hours from death after he arrived suffering kidney problems.

Mr Rycroft, a former caretaker at Selby's Barwic Parade Primary School, claimed that signs on the Woodlands Estate in Tadcaster were badly placed, misleading and in one case completely wrong.

He said: "It was not an emergency call, but it would have been if the ambulance had arrived any later.

"It's impossible to see the sign for my address, Ash Tree Walk, from the road."

His neighbour, Joe Scrancher, 68, believes signs were moved to the edge of grass verges to make the areas easier to maintain.

He said: "It's ridiculous. There are a lot of elderly people around here and they need to have fast access to emergency services."

Mr Scrancher said that a sign for nearby Beech Tree Road was in the wrong place. It listed even numbers for houses, which were on a different stretch of the same road.

He said: "You have to turn off at a different junction to access the houses with even numbers, which makes it very confusing for drivers to say the least."

Selby District Council's parks and leisure officer, Mike Harrison, said new signs for Beech Tree Road and Ash Tree Walk were on order from contractors.

He agreed that the Woodlands Estate was a difficult area to signpost.

A spokeswoman for North Yorkshire Ambulance service confirmed that ambulance crews have had difficulty finding addresses in the Woodlands Estate area.

Updated: 10:48 Tuesday, March 05, 2002