A grandmother is celebrating a victory in her campaign to save a bus service that provides a vital link between villages in the area and Tewkesbury and Gloucester.

Penni Townsend, 63, from Ripple, said she was outraged when she heard the 372 service between Worcester, Tewkesbury and Gloucester, would no longer travel south of Upton from Monday (November 4).

She uses the service to pick up her grandson from school in Tewkesbury and attend a textiles course at a Gloucester college.

Mrs Townsend does not drive and said she would have been forced to consider moving from the village, where she has lived for 29 years, had a service not been reinstated.

"It was going to leave seven villages without transport along the A38," she said. "It affects about 100 people a week. I know that's not a lot in the grand scheme of things, but it is to those people."

Worcestershire County Council was this week finalising arrangements with Tewkesbury-based Boomerang Bus Company to take over the Upton to Tewkesbury section of the service from First.

Mrs Townsend is now urging people to use the new service as the county council has only arranged it for a trial period of six months.

"Please, please use the bus," she said. "Even if it's just once a month."

Ken Radbourne, for the county council, said First had stopped running the service because it was not making any money.

"As soon as you start to have villages spread out in a long route it costs more and more to run," he said. "We're very pleased that we were able to come to this arrangement and, in addition, customers will be able to purchase through tickets for this new bus service."

Timetables for the service are available from Upton TIC.