A 16-year-old student has won the battle of the buses, persuading a college to provide transport so she can study the courses she needs to set her up for the future.

Alice Cockburn, from Bedale, believes other students will benefit from her campaign which will mean she can study a greater choice of courses.

Alice, who attends Bedale High School, which does not have post 16 education, was faced with limited choices after doing her GCSE which she will take next summer.

The main options were to study academic A-Level courses at Northallerton or go to Darlington College, which did not provide the kind of Btec craft, design and fashion courses she needed or wanted.

Instead, Alice was keen to go to York College which does offer the range of courses she wants.

However, there was no public transport to get her to Northallerton for 7.30am to catch the bus she needed, and no direct link from Bedale.

This prompted Alice to launch a campaign, winning support from fellow students, teachers, parents, councillors and Richmond MP Rishi Sunak; although many people said she was wasting her time.

Now York college has sent Alice and her parents an email to confirm they will be putting on a bus from next September.

The email said: "We will be in touch early next year with the route details, prices and pick up times, and we will be sending all the information to your school, but we just wanted to let you know as soon as possible. If you could get this information out to students that would be great.”

Alice said she was delighted with the outcome, adding: "It is amazing.

"This means I can do a course that I want to really truly do and I can hopefully succeed better in what I want to do for my future. Quite a few people didn’t think it was going to happen and I started to doubt it as well, so I was really pleased when the college contacted me to let me know it was going to happen.

“This has also opened up other possibilities for lots of other students too, and for people in the years below me. I want to thank everyone who has supported me - it just goes to prove that if you really want something it is worth trying because the worst thing that can happen is they say no, but it’s brilliant that they have said yes."