A BROMSGROVE grandmother is spearheading a national girl power fight to overturn "unjust and unequal" rules that mean many women are having to wait up to six years longer to get their state pension.

Lin Phillips, aged 61, of Blackwell, is one of the five founders of Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI), who are trying to raise £6,000 for a barrister to examine whether they could mount a legal challenge.

They say women did not get enough notice about the rises in their pension age from 60 up to 66, leaving many unprepared and living in poverty.

"I hear terrible stories about some women, who are living on Jobseekers allowance of £70-odd a week in their 60s, applying for work they don't get or even having to do a mandatory voluntary work programme to receive the benefit," said Mrs Phillips, a mother-of-two with three grandchildren.

"We're not against equalising the state pension age with men - it's just that we didn't get proper notice of it so that we could plan."

WASPI bills itself as "five ordinary women fighting for the right of all women born after April 6 1951 to challenge the unjust and unequal increases to state pension age for women".

Besides Mrs Phillips they include Anne Keen, from Liverpool, who has just handed the Department for Work and Pensions a 65,000-name petition, and three women from Leeds, Manchester and Surrey.

They have never met in person but have made contact through the internet.

They complain that the government twice increased the retirement age unfairly and without individual notice, "harshly affecting" women now in their 50s and 60s.

"Lots of women report being shocked when finding out about the rise to their state pension age, many just months away from retirement age 60," said Mrs Phillips, who believes she has lost more than £30,000 of her expected pension because she will not get it until she is 66.

"Some are forced to work up to six years longer and are suffering a double whammy, with two age increases thrust upon them they have no time to re-plan. Retirement plans have been shattered."

WASPI launched a "Crowdfund" appeal to raise money to research whether they could launch an appeal against the new women's pension rules - and within a couple of days they were "blown away" to find 65 per cent of that had already been pledged.

Mrs Phillips, who works part-time selling new homes, said many women in the Bromsgrove area will have been affected by the pension changes but, if there was a legal case, it could create "real change" for them.

She appealed to people to check out the "Crowdfunding" page crowdjustice.co.uk or crowdjustice.co.uk/case/women-seeking-pension-justice.

Although the changes to state pension age were introduced in the 1995 and 2011 Pension Acts, WASPI says many women did not learn about it until much later and they were never personally told about it.

The 1995 act included plans to increase women's state pension age from 60 to 65, so that it was the same as for men.

But WASPI says that, because of the way the increases were brought in, women of a similar age have to wait "disproportionately longer" for their pension.

A one year difference in birthday can make an almost three year difference to state pension age.