PENSIONERS are urging people to back their campaign for better state pensions.

Members of the North-East Pensioners' Association (NEPA) will be on the streets of Sunderland today, collecting names for a petition.

They have already collected several thousand signatures around the region.

They plan for the petition, calling for pensions to be linked to average wages or prices, to be delivered to Buckingham Palace by national campaigners Jack Jones and Dame Barbara Castle.

NEPA secretary Andy Robertson said: "The level of anger in the people who are signing the petitions is so intense you can feel it. The last increase of 75p wasn't the insult, it was the final insult. There are many issues that the pensioner of today is angry about and they have had enough."

Silksworth NEPA branch secretary Terry Boxhall said: "We don't think the hint of up to £5 in April that's been talked about in the media is substantial.

"What we call substantial is restoring the basic pension to what it should have been if the link had been kept in place. That's £97 a week. Now that's substantial.''