ANGRY residents are to take their fight to Westminster in a 20-year campaign for a pelican crossing at an accident blackspot.

The fight to prevent a tragedy on Preston Old Road, Blackburn, near the Cherry Tree Lane junction, has been stepped up after six-year-old Camilla Abdel-Aziz was knocked down last week.

Camilla, a pupil of St Francis CE Primary School, suffered head injuries and was treated in the intensive care unit at Blackburn Infrmary. She has now recovered enough to be allowed home.

Council chiefs are planning to install a pedestrian island during the next financial year.

But residents, who said the campaign had been going on for more than 20 years, have said that is not enough. Dianne Finch, whose daughter Victoria, six, was almost knocked down recently, has started another petition which she will give to Blackburn MP and Home Secretary Jack Straw at his constituency surgery in Mill Hill on July 11.

Dianne, of Livesey Hall Close, said: "We don't want an island because they can still be quite dangerous.

"My daughter had a lucky escape recently. A lollipopman would be OK for the pupils, but the road is a problem for the whole community.

"It needs a pelican crossing. There is a library, the school and a doctor's surgery and the road is very busy."

Raymond Rawcliffe, 67, of Springfield Avenue, who underwent heart bypass surgery in May, has already told how he found it virtually impossible to cross the road.

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