A BUS company boss has appealed for patience as his stressed-out drivers struggle through "absolute mayhem" on York's congested streets.

First York's operations manager Paul Bell revealed that the firm is putting on an extra bus on one of the worst affected routes - the number 13 from Copmanthorpe to Monks Cross - and also changing the timetable in a bid to restore a reliable service.

Mr Bell said First York had been flooded with complaints from passengers frustrated by the late arrival of buses at stops across the city.

"People vent their spleen on us," he said. "They say: 'You couldn't run a raffle.' But we are trying to cope with horrendous problems."

He said the closure of Cemetery Road because of roadworks, coming on top of the knock-on congestion problems across the city caused by the A64 roadworks at Copmanthorpe, had "crucified" services - particularly one from the university which went down Heslington Road and then past the Barbican Centre entrance.

"It's absolute mayhem. There were three of our buses on Heslington Road on one occasion and they had all come to a halt."

Services on the other side of the city centre had also been hit. The bus from Poppleton to the railway station normally took 20 minutes, but sometimes recently it had taken as long as one hour, 15 minutes.

He said that with the Copman-thorpe to Monks Cross service, which had to go through both the A64 roadworks and then the city centre, it had proved impossible to provide a reliable service.

First York had therefore decided to lay on extra buses from yesterday so as to be able to change the timetable to a more realistic one which could be achieved. Buses were scheduled to take ten minutes longer to make the total journey, but with an extra ten minutes at either end as well so as to give drivers more leeway when conditions were bad.

His comments came as City of York Council revealed that the Cemetery Road works would not finish as scheduled this Friday, because Yorkshire Water was waiting for some specialist equipment to arrive.

The council warned that the works might not now finish until Thursday of next week. However, Yorkshire Water said last night that it hoped to get the Cemetery Road project completed and the road reopened by early next week.

Updated: 10:36 Tuesday, November 13, 2001