Traffic snarl-ups are on the cards as engineers today began major works to strengthen a York bridge. Diversions will be in force and delays are likely as motorists struggle to find ways around the closure of the inner ring road near York railway station.

But although the contract to reinforce Queen Street Bridge is for eight weeks, engineers are proudly claiming that disruption to motorists will be confined to just six days.

Unlike the notorious rebuilding of the "bridge of sighs" - Layerthorpe Bridge - which saw fed-up drivers fuming in jams on the inner ring road for 26 months, the Queen Street work will go on relatively unnoticed.

The City of York Council decided to reinforce the bridge after detecting weaknesses in its structure preventing it from comfortably carrying 40-ton lorries - which it should do under new EU regulations that came into force on January 1.

Senior engineer Mike Tavener said: "We had the option of ripping the bridge out and starting again but that would have been incredibly disruptive to traffic, not to mention expensive to the taxpayer.

"We came up with this scheme in which most of the work is done under the bridge - people won't even know it's going on apart from the few days we have to close it."

For the past two years, traffic has been kept away from the edges of the road, which are the weakest sections of the structure.

The bridge is tested weekly by engineers, who say that any failure would be gradual.

The bridge, which was built in 1877, will be strengthened by adding extra concrete to its underside. To do this, engineers will first position "shutters" between the steel beams under the road to form a mould, then run wet concrete in from above, through holes drilled in the road. This is the part when traffic will have to be restricted.

On the weekend of February 6 and 7, the bridge will be down to a single lane, and then from Thursday, February 18, till Sunday, February 21, it will be closed altogether.

Mr Tavener said: "Of course there will be disruption but we are really pleased that it will be kept to an absolute minimum."

A GNER spokesman added that the car park at York station would stay open during the work.

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