COUNCILLORS are calling for a ban on chemical lorries travelling through a residential area after the leak of a toxic liquid.

It has been revealed that a tanker which spilled 25 litres of phenol on a Teesside road, lined with houses and four schools, should not have been travelling along the route.

The P&O Trans-European tanker, based in Billingham, shed the liquid the length of Marsh House Avenue, Billingham, from the Seal Sands chemical complex road, on Monday.

No one was hurt in the incident, but the road was closed for five hours. Councillors are now calling for tankers to be banned from the road because of the risk to residents and schoolchildren.

Billingham councillor George Chambers said: "Tankers should not be passing through estates and past four schools. We were very lucky this was not more serious. The potential for people to be hurt on a large scale is frightening."

The spillage of the corrosive chemical was cleared by Cleveland Fire Brigade and the Environment Agency, which is now monitoring drains and other water courses for possible contamination. The Health and Safety Executive is also investigating the incident.

A P&O Trans-European official told firefighters that the spill came from a valve which did not appear to be closed. The Environment Agency said the company would now be checking all its road tanker valves.

A spokesman for P&O Trans European said yesterday that it had sent its tanker for an independent technical investigation for faults which may have led to the spill.

He confirmed there was a possibility that a vent valve was involved in the leak.

Marsh House Avenue is not on the designated safe route for chemical road tankers in the former Cleveland county area. The safe route is monitored by police and agreed with the chemical industry, to take hazardous cargoes as far as possible away from homes and schools.

Before the spillage, Billingham councillors had been collecting a petition calling for tankers to be banned from Marsh House Avenue, and they had suggested an alternative safer route along Haverton Hill Road, Portrack and the A19.

Although a low bridge makes this route unfeasible at the moment, Stockton Borough engineers are looking at the possibility of lowering the road surface to allow lorries through