A FENCE aimed at stopping youngsters from getting on the motorway is to be erected, two years after a schoolboy was killed on the M65.

The Highways Agency applied to erect the fence on top of an existing wall at Rosegrove Lane, Burnley.

The move comes after pleas from his family, as well as coroner Richard Taylor and the police.

In March 2007 Harrison Hartley, 15, got on to the carriageway from the wall, and walked across the eastbound and westbound lanes.

But as he jumped back over the central reservation he stumbled and was hit by a car. The former Hameldon Community College pupil, of Harling Street, Burnley, died two days later in Pendlebury Children’s Hospital, Manchester.

The application for a fence was submitted by the Highways Agency after comments made by coroner Mr Taylor at Harrison’s inquest in May last year.

Sgt Ian Milnes, from Lancashire’s Motorway Police Unit, said: “We absolutely support anything that makes it harder for people to gain access to the motorway.

“Any improvements to structures that attempt to stop access to motorways would be welcomed by us.”

Harrison’s mum Donna Bennett said: “Just stay away from the motorway – for whatever reason. It was fairly accessible, where he went on to the road.”

A spokesman for the Highways Agency said that although they couldn’t fence off the entire length of the motorway network they would make attempts to improve safety where they felt it was needed.

The plans, which were approved by councillors at Burnley’s development control committee, will see a fence of about one and a half metres erected on top of the wall, across a length of 160 metres, making a total height three metres.