POLICE insisted this week that there would be no repeat of major problems which left 999 callers unable to get through to a main switchboard.

People making emergency calls to North Yorkshire police at the weekend could not get through to the force control room at Newby Wiske, near Northallerton - one of the force's two main hubs of communication.

A serious power supply problem at the control room shut down all of its communication and computer systems.

Operators at the force's other main control room, in York, had to take over the handling of its calls and the management of all incidents across the county.

At one stage on Sunday, plans were in place to move operators down from Newby Wiske to York to bolster the six operators there who were trying to deal with the increased volume of calls.

Sgt Sarah Priestley, supervisor at the force control room in York, said: "The problem at the Newby Wiske control room had a knock-on effect on every form of communication.

"The queues of calls were increased because people were having to wait to get through because of the reduced number of operators."

BT engineers managed to remedy the problem and the stricken control room's systems were back online yesterday.

A North Yorkshire police spokesman said: "The cause of the problem has now been established and we have instructed BT, as a priority, to make sure it doesn't happen again."