PARENTS are backing moves to ensure all vehicles taking children to and from school are fitted with seatbelts.

This week, The Northern Echo launched its School Seatbelt Scandal campaign after discovering that a legal loophole meant thousands of youngsters were travelling on buses without belts.

Now parents of children at Great Smeaton Primary, between Darlington and Northallerton, are joining the campaign after their concerns went unheeded by their local education authority.

At a PTA meeting last month, parents agreed to write to North Yorkshire County Council, raising fears over buses taking children to school from the Low Worsall area.

PTA chairperson Cheryl Whitehead said: "The feeling at the meeting was that it had gone on long enough and we should put our foot down.

"The Echo's campaign is exactly what we want. All we are asking for is for our kids to be safe."

She said parents had complained over vehicles without seatbelts for the 30 or so children bussed into school, but no action was taken.

She said that the authority was buying in a service which was inadequate.

"We only want them to buy services from bus companies who can guarantee seatbelts."

Sue Stainthorpe, whose two daughters aged six and five get the Great Smeaton school bus, said: "The older children on the bus don't want to sit down and if there aren't any seatbelts you can't make them.

"You see the older boys bouncing around the bus and that is dangerous for them and dangerous for my kids.

"We have tried going down the proper channels and we get sympathetic letters back but they don't want to do anything."

Richard Owens, North Yorkshire's passenger transport manager, said most contracts for primary school transport required the operator to provide vehicles with seatbelts.

But he said this did not apply when the Great Smeaton contract was drawn up.

He said: "We would aim to provide those kids with a vehicle with seatbelts. It is one that we would prioritise for having seatbelts when the contract is renewed."