Bingley Kids Front New Safety Campaign

A group of school friends from Bingley have become the faces of a new regional safety campaign to be launched in time for the school summer holidays.

Northern Gas Networks and United Utilities have teamed up to run Play Safe Stay Safe to help teach children about the dangers of playing near road works.

Youngsters from Trinity All Saints Primary School, in Church Street, Bingley, will feature on posters, leaflets, bookmarks and stickers, which will be sent to schools to promote the campaign.

Nine-year-olds Leah Short and Anisah Mogul, ten-year-olds Thomas Metcalfe and Joe Etherington and 11-year-old Emma Gooderham donned hard hats and safety gear to illustrate the dangers road works can cause.

John O’Grady, communications director for Northern Gas Networks said: “We own 36,000km of gas pipes in Yorkshire and the North East and spend millions of pounds every year renewing pipes. That means hundreds of essential road works, many of them in school holidays.

“We want to make sure children understand that road works are just like building sites and need to be treated with respect. Playing near them or tinkering with equipment like barriers, pipes and signs can put them and other people at risk and we want to make sure no-one gets hurt.”