YORK'S CCTV maintenance is going to be completely overhauled, only weeks after the Evening Press lifted the lid on the city's creaking camera network.

The upkeep of all 59 street cameras has been brought under one blanket contract.

The new £300,000 deal, which will also cover traffic lights, message signs, rising bollards and other technical equipment, should mean faults are fixed more quickly and cheaply.

Opposition councillors welcomed the wide-ranging reorganisation, which they said came about as a direct result of Evening Press revelations.

Coun Tracey Simpson-Laing said: "Obviously the newspaper highlighted an issue and you are there to inform the public. But let's hope it doesn't have to come to this again on any other issue."

In January, the Evening Press revealed that 23 cameras were not working properly, which critics said left busy areas of the city inadequately covered.

Victims of crime spoke out against the council, while York MP Hugh Bayley called on the local authority to fix the cameras "as a matter of urgency".

One week later all but one of the machines had been fixed and residents welcomed the urgent moves to fix the dilapidated system.

Coun Ann Reid, who is responsible for all highway maintenance, admitted that some of the maintenance agreements were dated and inefficient.

She said: "Once the problems with the CCTV cameras were recognised, officers worked swiftly to remedy them.

"However, we do feel that it is important to have in place a robust system that maintains the equipment to minimise faults but, if they do arise, they are dealt with as quickly as possible."

Council highways boss Peter Evely said in a report that the CCTV investigation had focused attention on the "lack of robustness" in council maintenance arrangements.

He said that one single new three-year contract should now be drawn up, with specific performance indicators to measure the service.

One of these would be the percentage of cameras working fully.

Coun Reid said that following the CCTV "problems" it emerged that maintenance arrangements for the cameras were on an ad hoc bases. She said: "Some of the original agreements date from 1992."

Updated: 10:16 Thursday, March 03, 2005