A bus company has defended an increase in fares for services it provides in Staffordshire and Cheshire.

First Bus will increase the price of a day ticket by 50p to �3 while its short hop fare will go up by 10p to 60p.

The new prices will come into effect on 29 December.

Andy Foster from First Bus said the increases are unavoidable.

He told BBC Radio Stoke: "We've done a number of changes over the last year and now we are doing some fine tuning on some of those tickets.

"Obviously we face increased costs - we have had large pay settlements, the cost of fuel and insurances.

"We face inflation like anyone else. Our costs are probably rising more than the general rate of inflation because of things peculiar to the general transport industry."