A roll around Warndon and Elbury Park (District Ward in Worcester)

Following an informal meeting with Worcester City Councillor Ed Kimberley this week I spent a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon having a roll around the ward. Primarily this was to try and find some benches (the Bike Worcester bench map appeared to show a black hole in Ed’s ward) so I thought I’d ch ch ch ch ch check it out, and made a few more observations to boot whilst I was out and about.

Firstly, benches. There ain’t none. Bonkers, right?. I thought I’d find a few on some of the shared use paths running through the ward, but there’s nowt. The only ones I could find were in bus stops, and inside the fence of a toddlers play area. This genuinely seems like the ward has been neglected, or let down by previous councillors. I mean, buying 50 benches and locating them throughout the ward would go down well, right? OK lets make that 100 benches.

‘Why do you care about benches?’ Well cowboy, they’re active travel infrastructure; having spent time walking with my delightful mother in law (no I’m not being sarcastic - she’s lovely) and my good buddy Mark who recently lost his battle with cancer, both need / needed a regular sit down; without the bench there ain’t no walk.

Next point: there remain some metal barriers on shared use paths. They’re slowly coming out across the city as part of the Bike Worcester barrier review in collaboration with the County Council (due to them falling well short of best practice (see LTN 1/20) and in some cases most likely being illegal under the Equality Act 2010), but Ed would do well to chivvy this along in his ward.

There are loads of flats in the ward, but I saw zero evidence of anywhere to store bikes. Looking at the 2021 Census data the ward has 23% to 54% of households with no access to a car or van (average for Worcester is 20.5%) so seems mad there is no Council provision to store bikes (although to be fair there’s little elsewhere in the city). Another one for Ed to improve on behalf of his constituents? Pictured below are bike stores seen regular on our recent trip through France and Spain (typical charge 25 euro per year).

There are however cars everywhere. Some parked illegally. Remember the average UK cars does nothing other than taking up space for 95% of its time.

Litter is a problem in Worcester (we seem to lack the civic pride witnessed on the ride through France and Spain, plus we need to spend more on keeping things clean; maybe the push to keep Council Tax low for the last 20 years in Worcester is starting to pay off - little bit of politics there). However it seems to be more of a problem in parts of this ward. Another one where Ed could make a difference which might be appreciated by the residents?

As with elsewhere in the city the maintenance of the shared use footway / cycle way seems to have fallen behind the maintenance of the roads (some of the cracks bigger than a day 5 wicket at the MCG), although there were examples of some of the paths being resurfaced, included some attractive and fun paint applied and adjacent new play equipment to boot (apologies, didn’t grab a snap). Again - easy win Ed, shout loud to get this sorted.

There is in fact lots of green space, but rather poorly utilised, and huge potential to increase the number of trees, which then provide shade and cooling for streets and buildings alike. There’s a common phrase in tree planting circles ‘The best time to plant a tree was 20 years a go; the second best time is today’. Worcestershire County Council will provide the trees. Go plant some trees Ed.

I found this one 20 mph zone, and I always wonder how these came to be, how can we replicate them elsewhere, and why the hell aren’t there more in the city? I’m going to go out on a limb, it may be controversial, but I reckon everyone would prefer it if the speed limit was lowered on the road where they live. Plus it’s statistically proven to reduce Road Traffic Collisions and make streets more attractive and liveable by reducing traffic volumes.

OK, so here’s the thing in the ward that is better than anywhere else in the city: the traffic calming. There are loads of speed bumps, raised tables and best of all, these brilliant chicanes that also allow continuity for people walking and riding bikes. Genuinely brilliant. State of the art fire power.

Another potential that Ed could look at is to request the TROs prohibiting cycling in his ward are reviewed. It’s actually pretty smart network of alleys and cut throughs between roads all over Warndon and Elbury Park, so don’t ask me to come up with the reason why some of these cut throughs have TROs attached to them. It doesn’t make a great deal of difference, and I suspect they’re most likely ignored by everyone, but time for a review surely? Take a look at our map here.

Finally to the zebra crossing outside Sainsbury’s. So anecdotally this is hotspot for near misses where pedestrians start crossing the road but drivers don’t stop in accordance with the Highway Code (looking at Crash Map it doesn’t seem to be any worse than Blackpole Road, or indeed that RTCs in the area actually happen at the crossing, but don’t let evidence get in the way of a good campaign). Anyway the plan is to spend several tens of thousands of pounds changing it from a zebra to a pelican crossing, because that’s better for pedestrians, right? Hmmm. It does fit perfectly with other road ‘improvements’ in the city implemented by car loving administrations of the last 20 years.

So here’s the craic: driver compliance at a pelican crossing is marginally better than at a zebra, but this is dependent on road speed. The other thing about pelicans? The norm is that priority is given to people driving cars, and pedestrians have to press a beg button (unbelievable name, right?) and wait for the lights to change (in some cases in the city that timer is set to 60 seconds if cars are present - which incidentally prioritises people driving from up to half a mile from the crossing). If you want an example already installed go visit Croft Road, and the sometimes dozens of people waiting to cross.

So this is supposed to be to the benefit of pedestrians? I don’t think so.

If you really give a fig about improving things for folk on foot you might want to (checks note) reduce the speed limit to 20 mph (which also increases compliance of drivers at zebra crossings). Oh, and call out antisocial, dangerous and illegal driving of course.

Anyway, there we have it. A quick spin around Warndon and Elbury Park. I’d dearly love to do it again with Ed in tow; there can’t be a better or more efficient way for a councillor to go check out their ward than by bicycle, and meet some constituents at the same time.

Happy to do the same for any other wards. Councillors, get in touch.

For reference, this is the route I took.