Why the Worcester City Council Active Travel Action Plan ain’t all that
Worcester City Council adopted their second Active Travel Action Plan at the Place and Economic Development Committee, 23rd June 2025. This link takes you to the associated briefing report for the meeting, and here’s a link to the plan: Active Travel Action Plan 2025 - 28.
Before we jump in with two feet and offer our two Kenneth on the subject, there’s a bit of history to cover first.
The first plan was adopted at the Health and Wellbeing Committee on the 12th June 2023 (a link to the Active Travel Plan report is here).The overarching aims and ambitions were excellent, referencing the central government aim of 50% of journeys to be walking and cycling by 2030, and also referencing the the Council’s aim of net zero by 2030.
‘So what ya crying’ about 2 years later?’
Hmmm. Well the plan itself was a bit of jumble of ideas without timescales or definitive targets, referencing projects already in progress, and LOADS of missed opportunities (link here), and didn’t have a chance of coming close to achieving the laudable goals. Which was frustrating, because as Bike Worcester we were already making decent strides in enabling and encouraging more active travel, and had bags of ideas how we could support the City Council, and they could support us, in making a real difference.
Now we did have conversations with council officers during the process about 4 or 5 months earlier, but couldn’t see any signs of our suggestions in the plan. Frustratingly the first we heard of the plan going to committee was about a week before, when the documents went on the website. So we had a week to try and improve it. We had some conversations and meetings with councillors, including the Chair Lynn Denham, who suggested that we propose improvements accordingly, which we duly did. We also emailed all committee members, and wrote this blog post here.
In the end we attended the meeting resigned to the fact that the substandard plan would be adopted in its current form, and a huge opportunity to enable and encourage an increase in active travel in the city would be missed. As such I arranged a public speaking slot, prepared a video to share at the meeting (if you watch the snip of the meeting you can also watch the vidya), and prepared myself to put forward my case that the plan the officers had prepared and councillors were about to adopt was substandard, aka not fit for purpose, aka rubbish.
Just before the meeting one of the councillors approached me and advised there’d been a compromise. There would be a cross party steering group that would have the ability to amend and improve the plan, and as such they advised it would be best for me to offer my support, that the plan would be adopted, and the process of improving it could start asap after this process was completed.
I’ve included the link to my appearance here. Watching it back I can remember everything I wanted to say but was persuaded not to.
Anyhoo, I’m sure you’re pleased to hear that everything said to me was just so, the steering group was brilliant, met regularly, made improvements, the plan was adapted over the course of the last couple of years and, whilst not perfect, everyone would agree it definitely had a positive impact on rates of active travel in the city, Worcester is no longer considered anti cycling, there is a notable list of infrastructure improvements…not least there are now safe routes through the city centre, and Bike Worcester has disbanded because, quite frankly, our work here is done.
Hmmm. I’m not aware of any changes that were made to the plan, other than to simply not do some of the actions. Happy to stand corrected; comments are open below.
So back to present times, and despite us now having regular meetings with City Council officers as part of the Worcester subgroup of the County Council Active Travel Stakeholder Group (you can get a flavour of this meeting here) we weren’t consulted in the run up to this plan being brought to committee, and the first we knew of the plan being developed a couple of months ago was a nudge from a councillor in the weeks leading up to the meeting. I forwarded the plan we’d created last time and waited for a call.
When we got wind of the meeting Rob and I were on our way to Spain. Rob reviewed the documentation, and again there were loads of easy win omissions from the plan. He told me not to read it because I’d get upset. But hey, don’t worry, there’s a steering group which will track progress and improve and amend the plan! Bike Worcester legend Daisey spoke at the meeting in the public participation slot, asking councillors the question whether the plan was as good as Worcester deserved, whether it would have a meaningful impact on rates of cycling, and if not, it should be sent back to the drawing board. The plan was voted through unanimously.
Anyway, that’s a load of words to get here, well done if you’re still with me. So here are our top 7 things we think the steering group should have cross party agreement on, and instruct the officers to include them in the plan and work to implement change around these. They are a combination of big impact, low cost, require limited officer time, and can be in part delivered in partnership with outside volunteer groups, eg. Bike Worcester. Over to you steering group:
Make use of the Worcester City Council communications networks, notably social media, to actively encourage people to walk or cycle, from the perspective that this is the preferred mode of transport for short journeys that benefits everyone in the city; examples from other LAs are available
This year has seen the closure of the Friary Walk (previously Crowngate) secure bike parking facility, well used by people visiting the town centre and onward travel by train and bus, with Mike Lloyd (Friary Walk manager) receiving enquiries from all over the world and putting Worcester on the map. Instruct officers to engage with Worcester BID and landlords to investigate arranging a short term lease and provide a similar city centre facility in a currently empty retail space; aim should be before Christmas 2025.
Request from the County Council that the TROs prohibiting cycling across the city centre (both North / South, and East / West) are reviewed, and a viable cycling routes are created within a fixed time period, eg. by the end of 2025 (it was first mentioned this was happening by Marc Bayliss in September 2024)
Make use of the Worcester City Council communications networks to grow the Bike Bus provision within the city, with the aim of all primary schools offering at least one bike bus route by the end of the 2025 / 26 school term
Acknowledge there is a problem, and then work with all stakeholders to improve the issues around illegal parking, over ranking of taxis, and driving in the bus lane outside Foregate Street Station, including taxi driver groups, the Whitehouse Hotel, County Council, and active travel groups.
Simplify SHIFT administration in line with the original scheme, extend SHIFT scheme to cover all walking and cycling activities by employees, share the scheme with all Worcester businesses, and encourage them to extend the scheme to their employees
Make better use of the car shaped bike racks owned by the city (FYI car parks are rarely a destination when travelling by bike); locate them at destinations (where people want to go) and monitor their use. Move them around. Defintly locate one at the Arches. Hey Councillors, take a look around your ward and propose a trial location!
‘If this is so important to you, why don’t you just go and do it yourself?’
Great question. And you know what? We do. All the time. That’s our modus operandi.
Thing is though, this is the City Council. They is legit innit. They are a respected democratic institution, with clear and present influence throughout the city, with the County Council, and with the network of other LAs across the country. We simply can’t match the administrative power, potential leadership and ability to communicate on any given issue to everyone associated with Worcester (residents, businesses, media etc), issues such as (checks notes), enabling and encouraging more people to travel by bike, and for everyone in the city to reap the benefits this would bring.
So come on Worcester City Council, officers, councillors, steering group. Please take the opportunity to improve our city!
