A SENIOR York councillor is seeking an assurance from the city council's suppliers that services will not be disrupted by the computer software problem known as the millennium bug.

Liberal Democrat leader Coun Peter Vaughan predicts a wide range of problems in the year 2000 unless the council's supplying companies act now.

"At midnight on December 31, 1999 every high-technology system in York has to cope with the change to the year 2000 and if it's not done right we have all got a problem or two," he said.

"What we need is a guarantee from each and every one of the council's suppliers and from all the other companies who have an effect on the way our city works.

"The list is a long one. The risks are high enough for council directors to demand that by December 1999, they can be satisfied by a guarantee from every company involved that all will be well."

Council officers were already working hard to ensure their computers would cope with the change, he said.

The problem is caused by computers which read dates as two numbers. For 1998, machines read 98 - in the year 2000 they will read 00 and assume it is 1900. Experts say the glitches caused by the bug could cause computer systems to "explode" as programs fail.

Traffic lights, lifts and flood barriers could be affected, Coun Vaughan warned.

The Environment Agency said it had been working on solving the millennium bug for two years and the flood warning system was number one priority.

The Foss Barrier in York could be operated manually, if necessary, and would not cause a problem, a spokeswoman said.

A spokeswoman for the city council's Information Technology department said she was confident all teams were working on schedule to address the problem.

She said: "We do take it very seriously, but it is something we have been working on for over a year.

"There is a programme of work and we are addressing the issue as much as we need to."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.