The head of an influential pressure group today urged the Government to intervene in the bitter dispute over who should pay for repairs to potentially lethal railway bridge barriers.

Campaign group Rail Future is backing The Northern Echo in its bid to secure urgent improvements to scores of crumbling barriers on road-over-rail bridges throughout the region.

The organisation's demand for action comes just over a week after it emerged that more than 700 vehicles had been able to plunge off roads and on to railway property in the last decade.

While the lengthy process of assessing the safety of thousands of bridges in the wake of the Selby rail disaster is under way, many campaigners want the Government to pledge millions of pounds to cover the costs of the necessary repairs - before tragedy strikes again.

The national risk assessment programme will take months to complete but even when it is over, the argument over who foots the bill is likely to rage on between county councils, Railtrack and the Highways Agency.

Rail Future chairman Peter Lawrence told The Northern Echo: "For too long this situation has not been treated seriously. It is a national issue which central Government must intervene in to end all the squabbling."

Statistics show that at least one vehicle per week is veering off the road and ending up on railway land, with many left stranded on the tracks and in grave danger of being struck by an on-coming train.

Mr Lawrence added: "Quite clearly it is an issue that we are concerned about and, while the examination of these bridges is taking place, we would like to see the whole process speeded up in view of the fact that so many could be a danger."

The Northern Echo first warned of the dangerous state of the region's bridge barriers last May when we inspected 50 along the East Coast main line and found the majority to be sub-standard.