AN ARMY commander was treated to an open top bus trip around York to mark his promotion.

Lieutenant Colonel Ian Hargreaves was given the surprise bus parade by his troops to mark him leaving his role as Commanding Officer of York-based 2 Signal Regiment at Imphal Barracks.

Members of 2 Signal decorated the bus, as part of a British Army tradition for commanding officers to be driven out of their place of work in style on their final day, with previous COs of 2 Signal having been pushed out on go-karts and armoured vehicles.

During the trip, the bus stopped to pick up Lt Col Hargreaves' two sons William, 11, and Freddie, 9, from Fishergate Primary School, before travelling to York Minster and Clifford's Tower, and returning to the barracks.

Lt Col Hargreaves, 43, said: "It was completely unexpected, but really nice and a special way to go round my home city.

"Another surprise was picking up my children from school. They didn't know what was happening either; they were just told to get out front and get ready to wave, as someone special was coming past on a bus."

The regiment received the Freedom Of The City in January 2001, following the 2000 floods in which soldiers worked tirelessly to build sandbag defences and assisted in the evacuation of residents.

Last year, 2 Signal, which has about 150 Gurkhas, supported the Gurkhas’ 200th anniversary commemorations, and in late 2014 the regiment deployed to Sierra Leone tackling the Ebola crisis in West Africa.

Lt Col Hargreaves will soon transfer to become assistant head of the Army's cyber warfare programme, but said his time in York had left an indelible mark on him, and he was proud of his time here as well as his troops.

He said: "I got here in August 2013 and we have just made York our family home. This is the first posting in 25 years in the Army that my wife and I have both thought 'we could live here', so we put our money where our mouths are and bought a family home.

"We had 12 soldiers receive a variety of different awards in 2014, 15 last year and two of our soldiers received operational awards on a list released last Friday - one for Afghanistan and one for the Middle East. That makes me hugely proud but the soldiers should take the credit for doing the hard work."

Lt Col Hargreaves will be replaced by Lt Col Caroline Lewin in August, following his promotion to full Colonel.