A BUS company has apologised to a passenger who says its drivers keep failing to issue him with the correct change.

Stagecoach North-East also said it would refund to Brian Milnes the money he had lost.

Mr Milnes, who lives in Bishopton Road, Stockton, said drivers failed to give him small amounts of change on five or six occasions over the past six months. The problems occurred when he was catching the 59 Stagecoach bus to the University Hospital of North Tees, in the town.

Mr Milnes, who is chairman of the Tees Valley branch of environmental lobby group Transport 2000, said: "The bus drivers say they have run out of change, but they don't tell you this before you pay.

"It adds up to no more than 30p lost - a 5p or 10p here and there. It is a trivial amount of money, but it is the principle of thing.

"If it happened once, I would let it go. But it has happened several times, and if this is happening all over the country to other passengers, the bus companies could be making millions of pounds."

A spokeswoman for Stagecoach North-East said: "We do issue our drivers with sufficient change for each bus route and it is only in rare circumstances that change would not be available.

"We take all such complaints seriously and investigate them rigorously and would like to apologise to Mr Milnes for any inconvenience.

"We will also be talking to the drivers to find out if there are currently any potential issues over change and, if there are, we will take appropriate action.

"Mr Milnes was advised that if he sends his ticket to us, his change will be refunded and if he could advise us of the services on which this occurred, we will be able to investigate those incidents in more detail."