WORK on a new car park at York Hospital, which was due to start this week, has had to be put on hold after a firm sub-contracted to work on the project went into liquidation.

This new stumbling block means that traffic gridlock, which has been frustrating patients and visitors to the Wigginton Road site for years, threatens to continue into 2006.

It leaves project managers facing a fresh round of negotiations to get another company on board to carry out some of the work.

But hospital bosses are confident the problem will not cause a significant delay to the scheme.

Mike Proctor, director of nursing at York Hospitals NHS Trust, said: "The proposed new car parking at York Hospital, to be built on top of the existing public car park, has been slightly delayed due to a sub-contractor going into liquidation.

"This situation is out of our control and we remain confident that our main project partner, FMG, will be in a position to sub-contract to another supplier very quickly.

"We estimate that the delay will be in the region of a couple of months and that the car parking project, providing a total of 430 spaces, will be completed by spring next year.

"As contracting negotiations are still taking place, it would be inappropriate for us to comment further on the cost of this contract."

York Hospital won planning permission to build a deck on top of the hospital's existing car park, providing up to 250 extra spaces, back in 2003, after months of consultation and feasibility studies.

The trust has come under fire from patients and visitors over recent years because of the lack of parking, which has led to daily queues of motorists in Wigginton Road.

Hospital bosses, who have shared much of the frustration, had hoped for a speedy solution to the long-running car park problems.

Trust chairman Professor Alan Maynard described the situation as "intolerable" at a trust board meeting in September 2002, before the planning application was lodged. He said patients often turned up stressed and late for appointments because of the parking problems.

York Hospital facilities director Danny Morgan has also previously told the Evening Press: "We're desperate to get all this sorted out. Car parking has to be improved at the hospital.

"Every day we have dozens of patients queuing in cars in Wigginton Road. It's an absolute nightmare.

"Nobody wants to come to hospital.

"They are anxious people, ill people. They are bringing loved ones here and dying relatives."

Updated: 10:07 Friday, June 24, 2005