FOUR school buses had to be taken off the road after police carried out checks in York and North Yorkshire.

Central Area road police officers carried out the checks on 37 school buses and of those 33 passed.

At Fulford School the three buses checked were all fine. At Huntington School two had to be taken off the road immediately. One had a defective tyre and another had a suspension fault.

At Sherburn-in-Elmet High School nine buses were checked and one had to be taken off the road because of problems with the emergency door, police said.

All seven checked at Barlby High School passed and of 15 checked at Tadcaster Grammar School one had to be taken off because of an insecure window.

Traffic Sergeant Nigel Atkinson, from Central Area police, said: "It is pleasing that 33 out of the 37 school buses were in excellent order and shows a very positive attitude among operators.

"Nonetheless, the four we found with serious safety defects show there is plenty of room for improvement and we will be back with a series of spot checks on school buses across the central area."

North Yorkshire County Council, which is responsible for the buses taken off the road at Sherburn-in-Elmet and Tadcast-er, said faults had been repaired.

The council's passenger transport manager, Richard Owens, said they had changed their procedure to reduce the risk of there being problems with their school buses in the future."

A spokesman for City of York Council said it was not aware that any of its buses had been taken off the road. The council would find out what had happened.

Updated: 10:07 Saturday, April 12, 2003