Updated:FIRE and emergency teams used cutting gear to free an elderly passenger from a vehicle following a smash near the Monks Cross shopping park outside York.

The road linking North Lane and Monks Cross Drive was closed for most of yesterday afternoon as the two vehicles involved in the smash were removed from the carriageway and investigations took place.

Police say the incident, which happened at about 11.30am, involved a grey Nissan Note with a woman driver, and a grey Rover 25, with an elderly male driver and a woman passenger in her eighties.

The elderly woman had to be cut from the wreckage and is believed to be suffering from chest injuries.

A spokesman for North Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service said: “The passenger was an elderly lady and the crews released her by cutting off the roof and releasing her through the side of the vehicle then taking her to hospital.”

The male driver was treated at the scene by ambulance crews. The driver of the Nissan is not believed to have suffered serious injury.

The incident saw the road closed for several hours, causing major delays throughout the area of the shopping park. Eleanor Livesey became caught up in the traffic jam when she went to Monks Cross at lunch time.

She said: “It took me about half an hour just to get past.

“It must have been bad from the fact that the road was closed for so long.”

The road was eventually re-opened by police at about 5pm.