Coronation Street battleaxe Blanche Hunt has been saved from the chop this week.

Writers on the ITV1 soap had planned for Blanche to exit early next year through illness, but after a top level meeting reconsidered after deciding that the character still had lots to give.

An insider on the ITV1 soap told The Sun: “It has been seriously considered and discussed at our latest forward planning meeting that the character of Blanche should be killed off.

But we appreciate she’s a great old, grumpy character and the chemistry between Blanche the Barlow clan and the other street regulars is superb so we felt we had to keep her.”