A swift campaign from the York Evening Press has prompted highways bosses to take a second look at a roadworks wrangle in the city.

When major roadworks brought York to its knees and threatened to bring traffic chaos around the city for more than a year, the Evening Press decided enough was enough.

The motorists' nightmare, coupled with the impact on the city's retail and tourism sectors, quickly became a regular front-page story in the paper.

It also dominated the letters page as angry drivers sounded off about incompetent highways officials - and even the Press's own deliveries to customers were affected by the chaos.

The paper launched a campaign to Get York Moving, carried on the front page under the uncompromising headline "York Cannot Take Much More of This."

It won support from MPs in the area and called for the Highways Agency to open up extra lanes of traffic on the contraflow and also for work to be conducted around-the-clock to complete the project - originally scheduled to last 60 weeks - as quickly as possible.

The following day a crucial meeting was held between Highways Agency officers, local council highways officials, traffic consultants and contractors involved in the roadworks.

Chief reporter Mike Laycock lobbied the meeting by hand-delivering copies of the paper to all those attending.

Eight hours later, he returned to the meeting to hear that the agency had agreed to investigate opening up two lanes each way at the roadworks, and also to other measures to speed up completion of the project, including Sunday working.

It seems like an instant success for the campaign - possibly the quickest in the paper's history as a campaigning newspaper.

But the Press is taking a cautious approach… waiting to see if the agency's promises result in firm action, and an end to York's traffic nightmare, before deciding whether to declare total victory.

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