THOUSANDS of people have signed a petition in support of naming a street after an Ardrossan soldier killed in Afghanistan.

Corporal William ‘Sav’ Savage was killed in action on April 30, 2013 along with his colleagues Fusilier Samuel Flint and Private Robert Hetherington.

Last week, the Herald reported that William’s mum Isobel Savage had applied to the council to name a street in her son’s memory at the site of the old Stanley Primary where he went to school.

But when Isobel and her partner Jim requested that William be honoured at the site, the council said that the street names had already been chosen and that the decision could not be overturned. Instead, William’s name would be added to a ‘name bank’ so that he could be honoured in the future.

Now Isobel has created a petition to try and persuade North Ayrshire Council to reverse the decision. At the time the Herald went to print, the petition had gathered over 8,000 signatures and was still growing.

Isobel told the Herald that having a street named after her son on that particular site was “very important”.

She added: “It’s where he grew up, where he went to school. It would mean a lot to me, even just to go by it and see he’s remembered in his town.

“Because I didn’t seem to be getting anywhere else, I thought this is the next step. “I don’t know why the council can’t change it.

“I know it’s gone through planning and everything but surely there’s some way it could be changed. “How hard could it be to change it? I don’t think they have really explained why they can’t change it. It’s just, ‘It’s gone through planning and that’s it’.”

Isobel was overwhelmed by all the support from the local community. She said: “It feels good, because it’s not even a public petition, it’s people from the Three Towns that have been signing it.”

A North Ayrshire Council spokesperson said: “We appreciate that Ms Savage would wish to posthumously honour her son’s memory and it is clear that she is being supported by many others.

“Unfortunately a postcode has been allocated for this development and the street names can’t be changed.

“We have added Savage to our bank of names and the name will be considered, if Ms Savage still wishes, when we are deciding on street names in future developments.”

To add your name to the petition, visit www.thepetitionsite.com/en-gb/528/922/651/ name-new-stanley-development-after-william-savage/.