CONTROVERSIAL speed bumps on a moorland road conform to national regulations and could help cut accidents, it has been claimed.

Dozens of residents complained after the road humps appeared in a new 20 miles per hour zone at Burley Woodhead, and a parish councillor claims the humps are effectively barring sections of the community from using the road.

Councillor Lexa Robinson says they are unacceptable for disabled people, drivers and passengers suffering from arthritis, and farmers transporting livestock.

But other councillors this week said potential objectors had been given a chance to make their points and a councillor spoke in favour of having speed bumps on the road.

Councillor Christine Hill said some farmers do not find the bumps a problem as they are used to driving off-road, and although accident statistics for the road are low, she believes many small accidents are taken place.

She told Ilkley Parish Council on Monday: "A local farmer laughed when I told him about it. It isn't a problem for farmers. Many accidents don't need to have the police out.

"If you drive down the road just off the garden centre, that wall has been decimated. I counted 14 wing mirrors, so people are losing wing mirrors and having bumps."

Parish council chairman, Kate Brown, says she has spoken to Bradford Council highways department officers.

They assured her that the humps had been tested in situ and were found to be within nationally approved tolerance limits.

They also told Coun Brown that not all the work was completed. Rumble strips and other features were to be put down to warn drivers they are approaching the bumps.

Councillors told of arthritis sufferers who find the humps unacceptable.

But Councillor Robinson, among other Ilkley residents, claims the town was told nothing of the plan to put the speed bumps on Moor Road.

At Monday's meeting, Councillor Mike Gibbons read out a letter she had sent to the council about the speed bumps, as she could not attend herself.

Coun Robinson said: "There's a suggestion here given the possibility of a future council of its own, Burley have cocooned themselves in and restricted the area by the bypass, yellow lines and calming systems such as the bumps at Burley Woodhead."

Coun Robinson said statistics showed there had been few accidents on Moor Road between May 1998 and April 2003.

She wanted to know who authorised the project to go ahead, and why the road was being treated like an accident 'black spot'.

Former parish councillor Chris Haley had attended some of the meetings in Burley about ways of tackling traffic problems on the road, but says he heard nothing about speed humps

Coun Hill said leaflets about the traffic calming campaign had been posted through the letterboxes of Burley residents, and the minutes of all meetings to discuss traffic calming on Moor Road were in the public domain.

Councillor Audrey Brand suggested that Bradford Council should put up signs clearly warning of the speed bumps ahead.