Potholes in York are being targeted by a new repair system aimed at cutting down on rough rides along the city's roads.

City of York Council's commercial services department is half-way through a 12-week roads and paths improvement experiment. Now, sinstead of reacting to a reported road repair, workers will go into an area and move through it, filling up potholes as they go. Council executive members Ann Reid and Irene Waudby yesterday went out to meet road gangs in the Stockton Lane area to check the experiment's progress.

Richard White, the council's assistant director of construction and leisure, said: "While it is early days, indications are that by adopting this system-based approach throughout the city we can improve services by ten per cent and save money."

Updated: 09:46 Saturday, July 19, 2003