A TEENAGER is critically ill in hospital after being hit by a car as he walked to school.

Police have launched an investigation into the accident on Clotherholme Road, near the junction with Aislabie Garth, in Ripon.

The youngster is said to be in a “critical” condition in hospital, with his family at his bedside.

The road is one of the busiest in the city with both secondary schools, Outwood Academy and Ripon Grammar School, either side.

The teenager is a pupil at Outwood Academy. The school declined to comment but police said the accident, involving a silver car, happened at around 8.45am this morning.

Paramedics were called to the scene and the Yorkshire Air Ambulance landed in the Grammar school playing fields to assist.

The road was closed for several hours while police investigations were carried out and diversions were set up around the city.

Councillor Stuart Martin, who represents the area on North Yorkshire County Council said his thoughts and sympathies are with the injured boy, his family and friends. He said he is working to find out more about the collision to see if there are any highway issues involved.

“I have been in touch with the school and the police and their investigations are continuing," he said. "I will be speaking to the highways authority once I have information about what happened. In the past we have worked on getting speed tables and speed humps installed along Clotherholme Road and outside other schools in Ripon.

“Highway safety is always a paramount concern in this kind of area where we have several schools. We have to do anything we can to ensure our children are safe.”

The crash happened over 100 metres from the entrance to the Outwood Academy, outside the 20mph school zone restrictions.

One resident who asked not to be named said: "I have lived on this road for many years, it has become extremely busy with the two schools, you get a lot of children walking through, but we haven’t had any previous injuries. It's very sad, our thoughts are with the teenager.”

Road Safety charity BRAKE said one in five patients admitted to trauma centres last year were road crash victims, one in five were young people and children are the biggest age group of pedestrian casualties at 17 per cent.

North Yorkshire |Police have appealed for any witnesses to the accident to call them on the non-emergency 101 number, select option 2 and ask for Traffic Constable Rob Roberts or email him at Rob.Roberts@northyorkshire.pnn.police, quoting incident reference NYP-11122017-0090.