ROAD safety campaigners say council cutbacks could cost lives.

The Brighouse Road Safety Committee says a grant, which funded a vital resource to engage with children, has not been approved.

And they worry about the impact Calderdale Council cutbacks will have on wider road safety issues.

They fear that if they don’t have any resource to connect with children, such as giving out balloons to the youngsters, the road safety message may not get across.

And at this week’s meeting of the committee chairman Ann Rutherford said: “Every year at Brighouse Gala we give out helium balloons to children and give them a pep talk about road safety.

“Calderdale Council has decided they are not going to fund the balloons and we are now having to look for sponsorship to cover the cost.

“It may sound like a small thing, but it is a false economy on the part of Calderdale.

“By giving one helium balloon to a child we have got the opportunity to give them a pep talk about road safety and if that saves just one person’s life then it is worth the cost.

“I am aware that they have got to make £40m savings, but what we are asking for here is negligible.”

The road safety committee, run by volunteers, deliver talks to children and once ran cycling initiative courses.

They get some council funding which covers the hire of a room for a public meeting for people to raise concerns and for postage costs, but the committee needs to raise funds and rely on volunteers to deliver the road safety message to thousands of children every year.

The committee has been in existence some 60 years and they campaign for better road safety measures in the Brighouse, Rastrick, Hipperholme and Lightcliffe areas.