Parents campaigning to stop motorists using a stretch of Brighton seafront as a racetrack are a step closer to victory after a five-year battle.

Brighton and Hove City Council is considering a scheme to put temporary gates at the entrance to Madeira Drive, Brighton.

The strip, a regular haunt for boy racers, has been the scene of 60 accidents and three fatalities in the past six years.

The gates, at the Aquarium Roundabout, would be in place for 18 months while a more permanent solution to stop racing on the road was found.

There would also be signs warning people to slow down and not to travel more than 30mph.

But campaigners say the gates, which would be open for some of the day, are too little too late.

Betty Gregory has been pushing for harsher speeding restrictions on Madeira Drive since her daughter Lynsey Richmond died in a car crash on the road in 1997.

She said: "I'm very pleased they are doing something. But accidents can happen any time of the day, so how will they know when to put the gates up?"

Pauline Jordan, whose 17-year-old daughter Harriet Jordan Wrench was critically injured on the road in December 2000, is another campaigner.

She wants a more permanent solution, such as speed cameras.

She said: "It's only a partial solution. I'm very glad they're finally doing something but it needs to be enough to stop speeding."

Environment councillor Chris Morley said: "Madeira Drive is an unclassified, long, straight and wide road. It is particularly attractive for speeding."

He said the strip was sometimes used as a car park and at night people, sometimes drunk, tended to spill out of clubs on to the street.

Coun Morley added: "It poses some unique safety problems as its varied uses mean traditional methods are not necessarily appropriate or practical."

He said the council was looking at long-term solutions.

One of the first race tracks in Britain was opened on the road nearly a century ago. It is still used for speed trials in September.

Ms Gregory said: "If I can save one family going through what I have gone through for the last five years, then Lynsey's death won't have been in vain.

"The council has got to do something soon."