FAMILIES in isolated communities are mounting a £21,000 travel campaign to keep their children at nursery school.

Parents in Upper Weardale have formed an action group to find funding for a minibus to take their three to five-year-olds to nursery units in Rookhope and Stanhope.

At a meeting this week, they asked Weardale's community transport co-ordinator Bob Dennis to investigate new ways of raising the £21,000 they need following cuts in subsidies last term.

Durham County Council is keeping the bus on the road until July after grants from the Countryside Agency and the Single Regeneration Budget ran out.

Action group members fear families will leave the dale if services such as the minibus are axed.

Some mothers cannot drive, and escorted transport is the only way their children can get pre-school education.

Joanne Nuttall, from St John's Chapel, who has two children at Rookhope nursery and a six-week old baby said: "There is very little here for families. We are fighting for the future of the dale, not just for our children but for those who are not yet born."

The group's next meeting is on June 21 in the Barrington Hall at 6pm.