A CAMPAIGN to clampdown on TV licence dodgers in York has proved the most successful in two years.

TV Licensing's Target Zero campaign caught 260 dodgers in the city during a month-long crackdown in the city. It was the highest number caught in a month since 1998.

Target Zero aims to target all unlicensed addresses in a drive towards zero evasion in the UK. The York postcode area came under the spotlight during March.

Mark Auslebrook, from TV Licensing North said: "We still find it difficult to accept that people will go to any lengths to try and evade paying for a TV licence. With the new sophisticated technology we use, and our database containing over 26 million addresses, we do catch up with evaders.

"With so many easy payment schemes available to spread the cost of your TV licence, it simply is not worth the embarrassment of us catching up with you, as 260 people in York have recently found out."

Special teams of enquiry officers targeted addresses with the very latest in portable detection equipment.

The detection teams were backed up by TV Licensing's computer database, which contains information on the licence status of 26 million addresses throughout the UK.