WORCESTER has topped a national poll for the amount of cars per household.

A survey by Royal Mail placed the WR7 postcode area – encompassing the mostly rural area east of Worcester from St Peter’s to Inkberrow – found each household had on average 1.95 cars, more than anywhere else in the country.

The WR6 area, west of the city north of Malvern and south of Stourport, was only marginally lower at 1.93 per household.

Chairman of Push Bike! – a group of cycling enthusiasts from Worcester working to promote the benefits of the activity – Lyndon Bracewell said the city already suffers from major traffic and parking problems.

“This congestion is set to increase due to the planned population growth and inevitable increase of cars on the city’s roads,” he said.

“Yet typically 69 per cent of all car journeys are less than five miles and 23 per cent are under one mile.”

He said Push Bike! was working to encourage the city and county council to make it safer and easier for cyclists in Worcester.

“I’m sure we’ve all noticed how traffic decreases at rush hour peaks during the school holidays,” he said. “I don’t know the exact figures for Worcester but nationally this decrease is about 10 per cent.

“The same reduction could be achieved every day if, on average, commuters chose to use a bike rather than their car to get to work for one day every two weeks.”

Green Party member of Worcestershire County Council, Matthew Jenkins, said he believed so many people in the area owned cars as a result of a lack of public transport links.

“It is a fairly rural community so the figures for car use are going to be fairly high,” he said.

The survey found the WR7 area has the second greatest amount of people married or in civil partnerships at 64.75 per cent, second to Poole at 65 per cent and just ahead of the Isles of Scilly, County Durham and Northumberland.

The information was gathered from a range of sources including the 2011 census as well as data from the Office of National Statistics and the Department for Communities and Local Government’s Indices of Multiple Deprivation