Brighton and Hove's buses could be brought to a standstill by strikes the day after a controversial price rise is introduced.

Drivers and garage staff are set to walk out on May 26 over demands for an immediate £8 per hour pay claim.

Employees at the Brighton and Hove Bus and Coach Company said the day of action would be the first in a series of one-day strikes planned for the summer.

Roger French, managing director of the company, last night described the demand as "ludicrous".

Members of the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU) and the General, Municipal and Boilermakers' Union (GMB) have voted in favour of industrial action to support the pay claim, which would take the hourly rate up from £7.28.

A total of 60 per cent of the GMB members who took part in the ballot voted in favour of all-out strike action while 70 per cent voted for other measures, including work to rule and an overtime ban.

Gary Smith, of the GMB, said: "Driving buses in the centre of Brighton and Hove and keeping the service going is a very stressful job.

"We do not think £8 an hour is unreasonable bearing in mind the cost of living in Brighton and Hove."

Staff agreed a two-year deal in 2000, which took the pay of the 700 employees above the national average.

The new pay rates enabled the bus company, which was seriously short of drivers, to recruit drivers from elsewhere in the UK, despite the high housing costs in the city and Sussex as a whole.

But Mr Smith said: "The bus company is part of the Go Ahead Group, which has made massive profits in the past year and has substantially increased the dividend it pays its shareholders.

"If the company can afford to reward its shareholders, it can reward the front-line staff who have made the company successful."

Mr French, who last week announced a rise in the city's general flat fare from £1 to £1.20 to keep pace with operating costs, said: "I am very angry about the union's unreasonable demands.

"Bus drivers and maintenance staff will have been given a 38 per cent pay increase since 2000 if we pay the £8 per hour immediately.

"Companies in any form of business cannot afford to pay their staff such increases and we would have to put up the fares more than we are doing already, which the public would not stand for.

"We have agreed to pay the £8 an hour in stages, and £10 for certain weekend working, so that it would be in place by February next year.

"The unions want it paid now and we say that is unreasonable."