A MOTHER is calling for a lake to be ‘dredged and filled’ after her daughter died in it last month.

Nicole Sanders, age 13, died in hospital on July 18 after she was pulled from Ducklington Lake in Witney.

Her mother, Amanda Holmes, said the lake is ‘extremely deep and deadly’ has now created a petition for the lake to be shut off to the public.

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The online petition, created on Charge.org, calling for ‘No more lives lost to Ducklington Lake’, has received over 500 signatures.

Witney Town Council, which is responsible for the lake, said it was aware of the petition and has invited the family to meet with key councillors and officers.

Ms Holmes said her daughter was standing in a lake with her sister and friends ‘no more than waist deep’ when the bed ‘broke away’ and she fell into the water.

Emergency services searched for 25 minutes to find Nicole until they found her ‘around 30 feet’ – but it was too late to save her life, her mother said.

Nicole was taken to John Radcliffe Hospital, in Oxford, but could not be saved.

Ms Holmes paid tribute to her ‘beautiful talented and caring’ daughter and hopes the lake will be closed off to the public ‘to stop other children from losing their precious lives’.

The lake is a flooded gravel pit, that was dug initially to extract material for the A40 Witney bypass in the mid-1980s.

Writing on the petition site, Ms Holmes added: “For years family’s have visited the lake and taken children into the water in an area that they perceived as safe

“The danger is that this could happen to anyone and at any point.”

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Witney Town Council said: “We completely understand the desire to do something tangible to prevent any further loss of life, and indeed this is our priority too.

“Given the number of similar flooded pits, rivers and other accessible areas of open water, and the hidden dangers that all of them pose, it feels that the most meaningful course of action is for us to work with the rescue services and schools to roll out an education programme.

“Hopefully, this will ensure that as many people as possible are aware of the dangers, even to experienced and confident swimmers, and choose safe swimming and water play options instead.”

The council is also looking to create a lido in Witney to provide a safe outdoor swimming space for the town.