TRAVEL by rail and road has featured heavily on the Worcester News letters page recently.

We had contrasting opinions expressed over the suitability of Worcestershire Parkway as a rail terminus.

Hazel Hyman wrote expressing surprise that it had won an award and went on to list several shortcomings. This prompted Colin Major to respond with nothing but praise for the station. It’s fair to say that of those who got in touch, most came down on Hazel’s side of the fence.

Jackie Bromley, from Whitbourne, contacted us to say: “Yes it’s a beautiful station with plenty of parking. There is quite a trek to the platform shelter – in the rain I would be soaked before I reached it.

“Unfortunately only some of the trains from London Paddington stop there. I recently looked to book a return ticket to London Paddington but the journey back, at certain times, meant that I had to get off at Shrub Hill and wait 20 minutes to catch the London train back to Parkway to pick up my car! Ridiculous!”

Saucerer: “It’s just a shame that the station offers no real advantage to anyone in Worcestershire in terms of direct or indirect rail services to other destinations beyond what many of the the county’s other stations already provide.”

His view was echoed by faithful to whom, who wrote: “I am a big fan of this new station and maintain it will prove to be the best bit of infrastructure for the county for many years.

“However... the new station has not been integrated into the timetable. It’s bonkers. If you travel from London or from Hereford and want to change here for Birmingham you just can’t save time. Is this so that Worcester is not put at a disadvantage?

“Also if you want to commute to Birmingham or anywhere else from Worcester by bus there is only ONE bus in the morning that is of any use.

Now that the franchise system has been blown out of the water perhaps there is an opportunity for a new company to insist on better integration.”

bikepacker said: “Cycling to the station and using the signed access to get to secure bike racks, you have to carry the bike up four flights of stairs across a footbridge and down four flights.

“Whoever designed this has no concept of arriving by bicycle or creating a self sufficient disabled access. A ramped subway under the railway exiting by the station entrance and next to the existing culvert would have been a much more attractive prospect for walkers, disabled and cyclists.”

Nannie2 talked hard cash: “No one doubts that the station looks nice and has all the creature comforts that one would expect but nothing can detract from the fact that it is a complete waste of money.

“I have only made two trips to look the station over and on both occasions the car park was virtually empty. Given that a £14.5 million loan was secured based on revenue from parking charges it seems that it is more likely that the council tax payer will be picking up the tab.”

Worcester News:

A letter from Andrew Morgan was seemingly pleased at the part-opening of the new dualled A4440 at Carrington Bridge. But he wondered whether the new housing planned for the south of the city would “take us back to square one”.

Adam White-Bower was in complete agreement: “The A4440 was recorded at 200 per cent utilisation at peak times some years ago.

“That hasn’t got better and the South Worcester extension will only exacerbate this problem. Until the northern link is completed to allow access from J6 this is a stopgap at best, welcome but not the full solution.”

Teresa Lynch added: “They should have made it a flyover across the roundabout! As soon as Carrington bridge was built bumper to bumper became the norm.

“Do planners actually take the future into account because it will just get clogged up again in light of new building?”