A shuttle bus service launched to drive down congestion caused by Sellafield workers is being rolled out across West Cumbria.

The nuclear company introduced a park and ride service from Egremont last month and has this week announced this will be expanded.

Bosses want to clamp down on the number of cars driving onto site and hopes the new scheme will ease the pressure.

New bus services are operating from Cockermouth, Workington, Greengarth business park near Holmrook and from Moresby Parks via Cleator Moor.

Liz Spedding, of Sellafield Ltd, said: "The recent introduction of additional services has prompted a huge increase in bus use by people going to work, and travelling between offices.

"To build on this success, we are introducing a wider range of options to further reduce the number of vehicles travelling to the Sellafield site each day.

"We are planning further changes which we hope will make a positive impact. We’d like to thank our partners at Allerdale and Copeland councils for helping us put these park and ride schemes in place, and to our provider Reays for their support with the changes."

There has already been an increase in car sharing to the sprawling site, said a company spokeswoman.

The shuttle service will begin at the Brow Top/Cloffocks car park in Workington and Wakefield Road in Cockermouth.

Michael Heaslip, Allerdale council's executive member with responsibility for car parks, said: "We welcome this partnership initiative from Sellafield and we were more than happy to work with them on it.

"There can be issues when so many vehicles are trying to get on to the Sellafield site and I hope workers will make use of the service and benefit from it."