City of York Council's transport chiefs have temporarily turned off the city's new anti-congestion variable message signs.

The action follows problems with the mobile phone network, which the system uses to relay information between the control centres and the message signs.

Roy Templeman, director of environment and development, City of York Council, said: "Unfortunately, the problem rests with the electronic communication system and we are working to get this resolved as soon as possible with the contractors concerned. As we can't guarantee that the messages would be correct at the moment, we've taken the decision to leave all the variable message signs blank until the network is back up and running so at least we don't give people the wrong information. We hope the system will be back on line within the next few days."