Five weeks of planned one-day strikes by Brighton and Hove bus drivers have been called off after they accepted a new pay deal from company bosses.

Last night drivers voted in favour of a revised offer from the Brighton and Hove Bus and Coach Company after officials from the Unite Transport and General Workers' Union provisionally accepted the deal on Thursday last week.

Dave Weeks, regional industrial organiser with Unite, said the new deal, which puts all drivers on at least £10.40 an hour, was a fair reflection of their work.

He said: "Once we put the feelings to one side and stepped back and looked at it, both sides realised how important it was to give the workers a reasonable level of renumeration that reflects the great job they do."

The two-day ballot saw 410 drivers vote in favour of the deal, with 73 against. Roger French, managing director of Brighton and Hove Buses, said: "I'm pleased there won't be any strike action because that wouldn't have been helpful foranyone."

Services across Brighton and Hove would have been disrupted during the series of 24-hour strikes, which would have been held every Monday for the next five weeks.

The resolution to the pay row follows months of talks between the two sides, which at times saw each of their positions harden.

The agreement lasts until 2010 when union and company officials are due to sit down and negotiate pay once again.