BUS drivers claim First Bus is trying to force them out of their social club by cancelling a payroll membership fee scheme.

Some 350 drivers have been paying £1 a week out of their wages to fund the GMT Sports and Social Club in Crook Street for the last three years.

Now the firm has cancelled the agreement amid an ongoing row over its efforts to evict the bus drivers from the club so it can sell the land to a developer.

Drivers claim the management have done this because they know it will be very difficult for them to collect the money now.

One driver, who did not want to be named, said: "It was a really simple way to get enough money to keep the club running. We gave the money back in trips and activities.

"It would be very difficult to actually get £1 a week off everyone but it amounts to quite a lot over the year and we couldn't manage without it.

"We believe the management realises that and this is just their latest underhand tactic to force us out of the club."

Simon Bennett, managing director of the West business unit of First Bus, has told the 800-strong member's club that it will have to find a new venue in the near future.

The company has been in talks with the drivers, who claim they can not find anywhere affordable, for the last nine months.

They have leased the club from First Bus for the last 16 years but the firm wants to sell the land so it can build a new depot in Weston Street.