SCHOOLCHILDREN and supermarket staff helped raise £240 for a road safety charity by holding a sponsored 'walking bus'.

Money raised is being donated to the Huddersfield-based Brake charity, which supports bereaved families of road accident victims and campaigns for safer roads, especially for pedestrians.

The event highlighted the health and road safety benefits of children walking regularly together supervised by adults.

Pupils at Blackburn's Audley School walked around their neighbourhood with teachers and staff from the nearby Asda store. The youngsters collected sponsorship from family and friends.

Audley headteacher Susan Grimshaw said: "We want pupils to walk safely to school, and have been involved in activities to encourage this. There are 700 pupils here and a lot live locally. But we have a lot of traffic congestion when children are dropped off or picked up.

"We already do education work about road safety, and there have been some speed hump and traffic light improvements on roads such as Pringle Street and Queen's Park Road. Now the main problem is congestion.

"We hope this 'walking bus' idea might help reduce congestion in the long-term. It's early days at the moment but we'll be looking at possibilities of establishing regular 'walking buses'.