Motorists in and around Ilkley struggled with treacherous conditions after just one inch of snow this week - while Bradford Council insisted it had delivered a 'Rolls-Royce' service.

Relatively light snow flurries on Monday caused a major headache for drivers on smaller roads all over town, including Wells Road, Wells Promenade, Parish Ghyll Road and Chantry Drive.

Only the main trunk roads had been gritted, meaning anyone using other routes had to contend with icy and slippy surfaces that offered little grip.

Traffic in and out of Ilkley also hit major delays thanks in part to the number of people leaving work early in a bid to avoid further bad weather.

By Tuesday the situation on many minor roads, which remained untreated, had worsened - with police forced to help motorists trying to negotiate an ice covered Chantry Drive after two accidents there.

The council says an 'inaccurate' weather forecast, which had predicted that snow would not start until 6pm on Monday, was largely to blame for the problems. But Bradford's Environment chief, Ilkley parish and district councillor Anne Hawkesworth, insisted that preparatory gritting had taken place on all major roads on Sunday night.

She said: "Weather reports were inaccurate and the snow was meant to start much later than it did, but we did get the gritters out earlier.

"What really messed everything up was that the traffic was so gridlocked in some areas that the gritters were blocked in and they couldn't get to where they were going.

"I'm convinced the gritting crews were trying to do everything they could. Streets like Wells Road should have been gritted but obviously the priority was to do the main trunk roads first, otherwise everything would have jammed up."

Coun Hawkesworth added that it had taken her husband more than three hours to travel from Keighley to Ilkley on Monday night.

Despite Council assurances that 32 vehicles were out treating roads on Monday, however, some people claim the gritters were only conspicuous by their absence when they were needed most.

Owner of The White House restaurant on Baildon Moor, Elaine Lawrence, said: "It had been snowing since 1.30pm and there were queues up and down the hill in both directions.

"It was gridlocked both ways, cars couldn't move up or down. On Sunday night the gritter came out three times but on Monday we didn't see it at all." The chairman of Add-