RED tape has forced a Petersfield charity to postpone a once-in-a-lifetime trip for young victims of a nuclear disaster.

Supporters of the Chernobyl Children's Life Line have been forced to cough up an extra £1,000 because of extra-stringent checks.

A handful of teenagers living in the fallout of the devastated nuclear power plant in Ukraine were due to travel to Petersfield in early March.

But organisers were forced to rearrange the four-week visit because criminal background checks were not processed in time.

And the failure has proved costly as a visa scheme that allowed children from the Chernobyl area and neighbouring Belarus to enter the UK has been axed.

The widely-opposed moved by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office means that Chernobyl Children's Life Line will have to pay an extra £86 for every child.

For full story, see this week's Petersfield Herald.