A teenage driver was killed and two passengers seriously injured when their car collided with a double decker bus last night.

The accident happened at Yapton, between Littlehampton and Bognor, and blocked the road for nearly eight hours.

The dead man was aged 19 and lived in the village of Ford, near Arundel.

His passengers, aged 16 and 18, in the grey Ford Fiesta RS Turbo were taken by ambulance to St Richards Hospital in Chichester with serious injuries. Their condition was described as stable.

The badly shocked bus driver was also taken to hospital but left later. The Stagecoach bus was carrying one passenger when the accident happened at 8.41pm on the B2132 at Bilsham corner, close to the A259.

A police spokesman said: "Both the bus and car had to be recovered and this led to a fair amount of disruption to traffic."

An investigation into the cause of the accident has already started and traffic police based at Chichester have appealed for witnesses.

The name of the driver who died is not being released until all his relatives have been told.

The bus was a 700 Coastline service which runs between Brighton and Portsmouth.

Stagecoach operations director Philip Medlicott said: "There was only one passenger on the bus, who was not injured.

"But our driver received some minor injuries and was obviously shocked and attended hospital."

Mr Medlicott said the bus was travelling on the correct side of the road at about 20mph.

He added: "The bus will be impounded and checked but we service all our vehicles every three weeks and this one was last serviced seven days ago".