WIRRAL YouTube sensation Bronnie Hughes was honoured with a mayoral reception at Wallasey Town Hall today.

The 17-year-old, from Caldy, won an international covers competition organised by American Idol presenter Ryan Seacrest after battling it out on YouTube for international exposure.

She was invited to the town hall to celebrate her success. She told the Globe: "It's a real honour and rounds off what has been a great year. The whole journey has been absolutely non-stop."

The first round of the competition saw Bronnie and 12 other hopefuls put their mark on 5 Seconds of Summer’s hit Amnesia, while the second saw her battle it out with seven other successful contestants.

Bronnie, who was also the youngest competitor, won the contest with her simple acoustic driven rework of Amnesia, during which she punches an impassioned high note during the final chorus.

Although she started off with the smallest fan base of the competitors, her popularity grew as the competition progressed.

Her cover song even caught the attention of One Direction's Louis Tomlinson who directed his Twitter followers to vote for Bronnie in the final. Other admirers of her work included Tom Fletcher of McBusted, and former Liverpool football star Robbie Fowler amongst others.

A delighted Bronnie said:"I've just been getting loads of views on my YouTube channel. I started with 10,000 views on all my videos and has grown to 120,000. So, pretty crazy.

"It was when I uploaded a cover called Centuries by Fall Out Boy that really hit it off, because it's now reached over 55,000 views.

"That was the main cover I did, but it's now helped me get over 100,000, which is crazy because it goes up by about 1,000 everyday.

"On the page you can go to settings to see who's watched it and it's weird seeing people from America and Australia, all over the world, sharing my videos with their friends and giving me feedback.

"I uploaded a cover of Air Guitar by McBusted and within half an hour it had been re-tweeted by Tom Fletcher. 

"Recognition like this was really, really cool because the reason I wanted to get into songwriting and as a singer was McBusted.

"I saw them in concert and they rocked out. They were just so good and are amazing musicians as well. I hope to work my way up and hopefully become a successful artist like them."

With an eye on the future, Bronnie is now applying to study on a foundation course in songwriting at Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts.

"It's a one-year course in which you learn all the basics of song structure and industry experts come in and talk about how you can make it and how to work your way up. I could then do a three-year degree.

"I'd love to be lead singer in a pop/rock type of band, because my inspiration is Avril Lavigne. I loved the way she brought rock and made it popular for girls and guys and got a big audience."

"Social media is the way forward. My advice to budding musicians is get your work on YouTube, because you never know who's watching - which is the scary thing!"

On Bronnie's success, dad Mark said: "I'm delighted. It's great to see her living the dream. She's been singing, acting and dancing since she was seven and it's nice to see all the years of hard work have paid off.

"Music is her forte and it's great to see her getting the recognition she deserves."

Mayor Steve Foulkes said: “Young people get a bad press these days, but Bronnie is a great advert for the borough."