Tyne and Wear Metro weekend services affected by staff dispute

Services will be suspended from 16:00 on Saturday 19 February until 08:00 GMT the following morning

All services on the Tyne and Wear Metro will be suspended at the weekend due to a lack of available staff.

Nexus says some workers are refusing overtime and all services will be stopped from early evening on Saturday 19 February until about 08:00 the next day as a result.

It has apologised and asked customers to make alternative travel plans.

The stoppage is likely to affect shoppers, Sunderland football fans and people on a night out.

Nexus, which runs the Metro, has apologised for the "disruption and the inconvenience it will cause," and said tickets will be accepted on local buses across the area while the service is suspended.

John Alexander, Metro operations director, said: "We are forced to suspend the Metro service across the system on Saturday evening and early Sunday morning due to an industrial relations matter affecting our control centre.

"A small number of Metro employees in our control centre are refusing to work overtime or train colleagues to perform their roles. We have contingencies in place to protect our customers when this happens, but on this occasion we've exhausted all options, so we do not have staff available to operate Metro safely during one full shift from Saturday evening into Sunday morning."

Services will be suspended across the network from about 17:20 GMT on Saturday.

Replacement buses will run all day Saturday and Sunday between Chichester and South Shields for planned modernisation work.

Nexus said talks with trade unions would continue "to resolve the outstanding issues there are within the control centre teams".