Villagers may defy their local council over a controversial "coffin" warning sign on a road they call Death Hill.

Road safety campaigners say a stand-off could be looming after Hambleton planners voted to have the seven-foot placard removed from the A19 at Thormanby, near Easingwold.

The campaigners warn that angry residents could refuse to move the sign - or opt to put it on a trailer, which some think may evade planning rules.

The future of the sign will be debated at a public meeting after Hambleton District Council's planning committee gave villagers two weeks to take it down.

Legal action will be taken against the owner of the land on which the sign stands unless it is removed.

The placard, which features the words "Death Hill" and the image of a coffin, was put by the A19 on the north side of Thormanby to alert drivers to the accident black spot at the top of the hill, which has seen four fatal crashes since 1997 and a string of other serious accidents.

The sign is part of a wider campaign by residents to get a bypass built around their village.

Thormanby safety campaigner Stephen Suart said a village meeting would take place next Thursday to discuss the next step.

He said villagers may decide to ignore the council's request and face the consequences, or try a compromise move which would see the sign put on a trailer which villagers believe would make it mobile and, therefore, within the planning regulations.

"The sign has helped to slow traffic down," said Mr Suart. "A lot of villagers have said to me that people are seeing the coffin and slowing down.

"We still get the odd vehicle, usually a heavy goods vehicle, coming through at 60 or 70mph. But it has helped."

Hambleton's planning committee chairman Councillor Geoff Ellis, from Easingwold, spoke out strongly against the sign during yesterday's meeting, describing it as "very, very distasteful" and adding that it was something which had sparked a lot of complaints.

"We have got to make a stand," he said. "You cannot take the law into your own hands. If everybody put signs up like this, it would be like America."

But his view was not shared by Coun Mollie Haigh, whose ward covers Shipton-by-Beningbrough, another village which she said "desperately needed" a bypass around it.

She said: "I use the road and the sign does not distract me. I notice it. It's a very useful reminder and I think it's had an effect."

Coun Peter Sowray, whose Hambleton District Council ward covers Thormanby, told the Evening Press that the sign situation was a "diversion" from the real, pressing issue.

He said: "The main thing we are after is to get a bypass and there is a lot of work to do."

Updated: 12:21 Friday, April 20, 2001