DRIVERS using a busy roundabout on a main road were astonished to see its new inhabitants... a flock of runaway sheep.

Police were called into action after the woolly marauders arrived at the Powick roundabout, on the A449 near Worcester, from a nearby field.

The sheep took over the grassy knoll at the junction of the A449 and the A4440, grazing away seemingly uncaring of the steady stream of cars, lorries and other vehicles surrounding them.

Police worked with a local farmer to round up the flock and return them to their field yesterday.

Eyewitness Beth Huntley, of Pershore, who saw the flock from a passing car, said: "There were probably about 20 or 30 of them. They looked happy enough where they were, but I was wondering where they had come from.

"There was a tractor going round the island, and I wondered if that was the farmer and he was going to get them back into their field."

A West Mercia Police spokesman said: "The farmer was on his way within minutes to round them up, and two police officers and a PCSO were on hand to assist him.

"The sheep had escaped from a nearby field through a hole in the fence.

"The farmer had blocked the hole with a plank but someone had removed the plank.

"The farmer and the officers got them back in the field and made sure the hole had been fixed again. No sheep were injured during the incident."