COACHES are continuing to attempt to get up the Struggle above Ambleside despite width restriction signs that were put up following the horrific crash there nearly four years ago.

Members of Lakes Parish Council heard from Kirkstone resident Fiona Haworth that at least three coaches tried to climb the narrow, steep and twisting road last year.

Councillors were also told that the police had also reported stopping a Dutch coach firm that was still routing its drivers up the road, which was the scene of near tragedy in June 2002.

Mrs Haworth also reported that other large vehicles such as delivery vans and motor homes were also causing snarl-ups on the Struggle, and vehicles coming down were also travelling too fast before they reached the 30mph restriction on the outskirts of Ambleside.

She said that extra signs were needed above Edinboro so that drivers of large vehicles who had inadvertently started up the pass would know not to go further.

Councillors agreed that action would be taken to improve signage in the area.

Ambleside hit the national headlines in the summer of 2002 when the driver of a coach carrying a party of 43 day-trippers lost control of the vehicle on the Struggle.

The coach careered downhill, went through a wall, overturned down a steep slope on Kirkstone Road and eventually came to rest near a bungalow.

All the people on the coach - 41 women and two men on a Women's Institute trip from Stakeford, near Ashington, Northumberland suffered some form of injury (more than a dozen members were seriously hurt) but fortunately there were no fatalities.

Coach driver Frederick Messenger, of Ashington, pleaded guilty at Carlisle Crown Court to driving with defective brakes. He also admitted dangerous driving on the basis that he had missed a warning sign at the top of Kirkstone Pass and failed to stop when it became clear how steep the road was.

He was jailed for nine months in November 2003 and also banned from driving for three years.