BUSINESSES in York are being urged to pick up the gauntlet and join the fight to get the city's outer ring road dualled.

A call for action has been made in support of a campaign which was launched last year and will see York business leaders travel to Downing Street to hand over a petition to the Prime Minister.

The campaign was launched by York, North Yorkshire and East Riding Enterprise Partnership (LEP) in conjunction with the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), the Chamber of Commerce, York Professionals and Institute of Directors.

This week David Kerfoot, deputy chairman of the LEP, spoke at a York Professionals event and invited attendees to join forces in a bid to attract funding from Government to dual the A1237.

He said: "One of the biggest challenges in our area is York ring road. It puts a great deal of restrictions on the business activity and the economy of the city.

"It strikes me that if you really shout in the right direction hard enough those shouts will be heard.

"We want businesses to come together, to hit Government hard and say 'Isn't it about time a great city such as York had a dual ring road?'

"We're calling for a concerted effort by everyone concerned to get behind this and highlight that York needs a dualled ring road."

The event, held at York Medical Society in Stonegate, also heard from Tony Clarke, head of transport at City of York Council, who talked about the practicalities of dualling the outer ring road, as well as giving an update on the the £37.6 million allocation from the West Yorkshire Transport Fund to upgrade roundabouts on the northern section of the road.

He revealed the outer ring road is used by 35,000 vehicles a day, just 5,000 short of the number of road users on the dualled A64. With 13 roundabouts over a ten mile stretch, 80 per cent of journey on the ring road start or end in York.

Mr Clarke said the sum needed to dual the entire ring road is in the region of £350 million but admitted the figure was based on an estimate.

He said funding is allocated from Government on a point scoring basis, with infrastructure schemes graded in relation to potential benefit for journey times versus costs of the development.

Mr Kerfoot said: "We welcome West Yorkshire's investment in the roundabouts, but the ring road needs to be sorted properly. Putting roundabouts in and improving junctions isn't going to solve the overall problem. That's what we need the campaign to fix."

Anybody wishing to support the campaign can sign up to the online petition at www.businessinspiredgrowth.com/dualyorkringroad.