GAS-FILLED balloons will be banned from school events throughout the county and children encouraged not to buy them outside school, Buckinghamshire county councillors agreed on Monday.

GAS-FILLED balloons will be banned from school events throughout the county and children encouraged not to buy them outside school, Buckinghamshire county councillors agreed on Monday.

Chalfont St Peter Parish Council, backed by the National Farmers' Union, banned balloons from the village common and the surrounding area a year ago, to save animals choking on balloon fragments.

Members of the county's countryside sub-committee agreed to follow suit by banning balloons from schools, because the balloon fragments, strings and labels are a danger to animals.

Countryside officer Julia Carey explained: 'These are the small balloons attached to children. They can go up to five miles high, and the fragments many hundreds of miles when they disintegrate.'

Councillor Bill Chapple (Con, Aston Clinton and Weston Turville), the son of a Devonshire farmer said: 'This is a very serious item. At the end of the day, the farming community is having a hard enough time making ends meet, and balloons coming out of the sky can kill their animals. This is something that has increased in the last decade.

'When they go up in a bunch, there is a major potential for choking animals. Even if they reach the sea, they are a danger to marine life, like whales.'

Cllr Bruce Allen (Con, Chalfont St Peter East) commented: 'We would like to ban balloon races at school events. We would like this to come from the children themselves. We would like to see the county balloon-free.'

Cllr Chapple said: 'I hope the press will take this on as a serious issue, and not as a frivolous one.'

Chalfont Balloon Ban: Page 12