A MOTHER is appealing for cycling to be monitored through Lowestoft town centre after a youth narrowly avoided running into her young daughter.Vanessa Clark told of how three-year-old Faith escaped a serious injury while they were out shopping when a boy wearing a hooded top raced towards her.

A MOTHER is appealing for cycling to be monitored through Lowestoft town centre after a youth narrowly avoided running into her young daughter.

Vanessa Clark told of how three-year-old Faith escaped a serious injury while they were out shopping when a boy wearing a hooded top raced towards her.

She was only rescued by her quick- thinking mother who grabbed her left shoulder and lifted her away from the danger.

Miss Clark, who lives in Kessingland, said she had read many letters in The Journal regarding cycling on the promenade but wanted to bring the danger of cycling through the town centre to the attention of people.

“Cyclists should not be allowed to ride through the town centre. There were many elderly people in the town, some with walking sticks and some partially sighted who do not expect to have to watch our for some ill-mannered, careless individual racing on a cycle.”

The 34-year-old described how they came out of the Britten Centre to cross over to Savers in London Road North when the incident occurred.

“Faith was walking a couple of steps ahead of me, while I pushed her buggy, when a teenager came racing down the street on a cycle and almost knocked Faith over. He swerved to miss her, nearly hitting a woman.

“Had she been a fraction further away he would have hit her without a doubt. I shouted at him as he continued cycling down the street and received a mouthful of abuse and a delightful hand signal.”

A spokesman for the Highways Agency said the teenager should not have been cycling in the area because it is banned between Gordon Road and Station Square. People are only able to push their bikes along this stretch of London Road North.

It is also not allowed between 10am and 4pm between Milton Road and Gordon Road.

He said the issue of cycling was now the subject of a traffic regulation review in Lowestoft which is taking place over the next four years.