TALKS are continuing to avert a strike of toll booth staff on the Severn Bridges due to take place next week.

Workers with Unite the Union are planning to hold a 24-hour strike on the Friday before the August Bank Holiday weekend.

They will work-to-rule and hold an overtime ban from Tuesday morning onwards.

But Jeff Woods, the union's regional officer, says he was optimistic about talks with bridge firm Severn River Crossing which took place today and will continue tomorrow.

He said strike action was a "last resort" but that discussions were constructive and that an agreement could be forged tomorrow.

The row between the Union and the firm is over shift patterns which the firm wants to impose, but which union officials believe will upset the balance between toll collectors' home lives and their work.

Severn River Crossing is obliged to keep the bridges open.

Mr Woods said the firm has said it is forced to cut costs because of a drop in revenue, and have drawn up shift patterns which they believe will reduce their costs.

He said the patterns would increase queues and inconvenience the public: "People in queues get irate. My members are on the front line, they take the brunt."

But he said: "We are doing our damnedest to avoid that strike."

The union had put together an alternative to the firm that would help with cost cutting but wouldn't be "such an unfriendly unbalanced shift pattern", he said.

Severn River Crossing were contacted but did not respond.

It is not clear how the tolls would be manned during any strike.