Shoppers and office workers today branded two boarded-up stores and a seedy city car park "eyesores in York's street of shame".

More than a year after City of York Council indicated it would tidy up Tanner Row Car Park off George Hudson Street, both lifts are out-of-action, staircase doors are off their hinges, graffiti adorns the walls and windows have been smashed.

And when shoppers emerge on to the street, they walk past the boarded up former Presto supermarket, which closed down almost FOUR years ago and the former Victoria House department store - which shut almost TWO years ago - on the other side of the street.

But today it emerged that at last something may be done to improve the multi-storey car park after the owners served a "dilapidation notice" on the council, who lease it, to carry out structural repairs.

A council spokesman explained that a 'dilapidation notice' is a legal obligation of the tenancy agreement which in this case obliges the council, the leaseholders, to properly maintain the property of the owners, Safeway.

Michael Emery, manager of Fads furniture store on Rougier Street, said "It is a street of shame. Nobody knows it is a car park, it looks like a disused prison with all that dirty brickwork."

Roy Templeman, the council's head of environment and development services, said that a report would be going to a future planning and transport meeting proposing short-term measures to improve the car park, including repairs to the lift.

And he revealed that the council has been involved in talks with developers in a bid to improve the long-term appearance of the area, by getting the car park and two stores re-developed appropriately, though he does not want to see any more licensed premises in the area.

Liberal Democrat councillor Steve Galloway said today the car park was York's worst eyesore and its condition was totally unacceptable, particularly the lack of lift access for the disabled.

A spokesman for Safeways, which owns the former Presto building, explained efforts had been continuing to sell or lease the building over the past four years and would continue, but said: "There's no news, I'm afraid. We are marketing it but we have just not had any joy. I know people find that irritating but it's just the case. We have served the dilapidation notice in an attempt to galvanise the council into maintaining the property to a level which may aid us in re-letting it."

He said the company was continuing to pay rates on the building and was as keen as anyone else to find a new occupier.

Lilian Parkinson, co-ordinator of York's Disability Rights and Resource Centre, said: "If lifts are out of order it causes inconvenience to the users and in particular to people with disabilities.

"But our experience has always been that the city council respond in a positive way to the needs of the citizens of York and especially to disabled people."

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