Historic York walls to get £350,000 'urgent' repair grant

York's historic mediaeval city walls are to get £350,000 towards "urgent" repairs.

The city council approved the grant as part of a five-year programme of restoration to the medieval stonework.

Some of the money will be used to find further sources of funding for additional work.

According to the city's tourist office, more than 2.5m people walk along all, or part of, their two mile (3.4km) length each year.

John Oxley, archaeologist at City of York Council, said work would start this year on "really urgent areas" at the Micklegate Bar and Monk Bar Steps.

He said: "Looking forward we are going to have to keep monitoring the situation and look at how we can identify funding both from the city council and, I'm afraid, increasingly from other stakeholders.

"[It's] to ensure that we can maintain the walls in this condition that they are today so that everybody can enjoy them."