WORCESTER'S riverside renaissance is heading north - with council chiefs saying they want to invest more cash into extending the hugely successful transformation.

In recent years more than £5 million has been sunk into overhauling the city's riverside to make it a magnet for visitors to flock to.

The improvements, which include a new Diglis bridge, raised embankments along Hylton Road and resurfaced walkways in a circular route all the way past Pitchcroft, have been widely credited with putting the city on the map, boosting the environment and tackling obesity.

Worcester City Council now says it wants to team up with the county council and find the funds to turn attention to the northern part of the riverside, saying it wants to "do what it did at Diglis" with Gheluvelt Park and Kepax Country Park.

Councillor Simon Geraghty, the leader, says the northern stretch of the riverside could be unlocked the same way as the southern side.

He also wants to hold a yearly 'riverside festival' to celebrate the asset it has become.

Talks with the county will only progress if the city council's Conservative can finalise its new five-year Corporate Plan, a dossier laying down Worcester's key goals by 2020.

Cllr Geraghty, speaking during a meeting of the performance, management and budget scrutiny committee, said: "I was struck when I become leader (for the first time in 2006) that not enough had been done to the riverside.

"I think the city had turned its back on the riverside, but that's not the case anymore.

"We now want to go further - a lot has been down on the southern bit by Diglis but we want to move it further north.

"Can we do what we did at Diglis at Gheluvelt and Kepax? That's the aim.

"I don't think you will find one person who hasn't been struck by the work that's been done, now it's time to bring those benefits to the north as well, creating that connectivity all the way along the riverside that attaches the north to south."

Labour Councillor Paul Denham said: "15 years ago we had an ambition to move lorries away from the riverside to improve the quality of life around there and it's not happened."

Liberal Democrat Councillor Liz Smith urged him to look at the footpath along Pitchcroft.

Cllr Geraghty's comments follow a bid by Worcestershire's Local Enterprise Partnership for a new pedestrian river crossing from Gheluvelt Park to Kepax Country Park, which was submitted last summer to central Government as part of a 'ask' of £250 million by 2020.

Nothing has been secured for the crossing as of yet.