WORRIED parents are stopping their children from playing in the street as fears over road safety rise.

The desperate move comes after five-year-old Kayley Garnett suffered severe head injuries when she was knocked over by a car in Windsor Road, Gillingham.

Kayley, who had been playing in the street when she was hit, suffered two fractures to her head, a blood clot behind the eye and severe bruising to her body.

Her mother Donna, 27, says parents have handed a petition to the council and are calling for road safety measures. She said: "Kayley is the fourth child in four years to have been hit by a car in this street and I’m being told the council refused to allow this street to have speed bumps.

"We’re disgusted that four children have been hurt and nothing has been done. Kayley was so lucky. It was touch-and-go for a while but now she’s making a steady recovery.

"We don’t let our children play in the street any more. We send them out the back or we give them a lift to their friends’ house. We think it’s only a matter of time before someone else is hit and next time they might not be so lucky."

Kayley is now making a slow recovery at home. Kind neighbours chipped in to buy her a new coat to replace the one she was wearing when she was hit by the car.

There have been six reported incidents on the junction of Windsor Road and Gillingham Road in the past five years.

A Medway Council spokesperson said: "We take road safety very seriously and listen to the concerns of residents. A petition was given to a meeting of Medway Council’s Full Council, concerning road safety in Windsor Road, Gillingham.

"We will now look at the accident data to see if there is a common cause. If they do seem to be caused by one common factor we will look at ways of preventing this in future."