Parents have launched a campaign to overturn a council decision to axe a busy bus route.

More than 100 angry parents, pupils and teachers attended a public meeting about the proposed cancellation of the 96 bus route - and were told the axe would be postponed until October 22.

Brighton and Hove City Council says the service is too expensive to run but parents fear their children will be put in danger walking to school and crossing busy roads.

The bus ferries about 70 children daily from the Patcham and Westdene areas to Blatchington Mill School in Nevill Avenue, Hove, and Hove Park Lower School, Hangleton Way, Hove.

Pupils had been told earlier this month the 96 service would stop on September 24.

The route, like all bus services in the city, is contracted to Brighton and Hove Bus and Coach Company by the council.

The cost of the contract is £23,660, about £11,000 of which is a subsidy paid by the council. The rest is met by bus fares.

During negotiations for new bus contracts in the summer, the council decided subsidising the service was no longer viable.

The 91 bus, which carries pupils from Hollingdean to BHASVIC, in Dyke Road, Hove, and Cardinal Newman School, in Upper Drive, Hove, is also being axed. Parents have been informed their children must either walk to school or take a bus into the city centre and change, meaning a journey time of an hour or more.

Val Staveley, who has a 15-year-old son at Blatchington Mill, said: "The alternatives to the 96 the council is suggesting will mean children crossing Dyke Road Avenue, Old Shoreham Road and London Road, which are all dangerous at the best of times but at that time in the morning, with all the extra traffic and extra children, the prospect is terrifying.

"The council must have spent hundreds of thousands of pounds telling everybody to get out of their cars and use public transport. It seems unbelievable it won't stump up £11,000 for a school bus."

Neil Hunter, headmaster of Blatchington Mill, said: "We are as upset as the parents are.

"I don't think the council has taken into account the worrying effect this will have on the health and safety of children."

Parents and pupils will attend a council meeting on September 30 to present a petition.

Councillor Craig Turton, deputy chairman of the council's environment committee, said: "We were happy to listen to the views of parents on this and have agreed to fund the contract for those extra few weeks so students have time to check out alternative routes."

David Lepper, MP for Pavilion, said he would lobby the bus company and council to keep the bus on the road.