HUNDREDS of people are crossing Worcester’s new £2 million foot and cycle bridge every day.

A high-tech counter installed on Diglis Bridge, which counts daily activity, is recording between 500 and 600 journeys back and forth on weekdays with up to 1,500 at weekends. On the last August Bank Holiday Monday, 1,924 journeys were notched up. Councillor Derek Prodger, Worcestershire County Council’s cabinet member for transport and safe environment, said: “I am incredibly happy and proud that so many people have walked and cycled across our new bridge – proof it is a great facility and provides such a useful link across the Severn.

“I am confident these figures will continue to rise as more and more people use the bridge for their journeys to work or school, and realise that there really are better ways of travelling around Worcester.”

As previously reported in your Worcester News, the bridge links Navigation Road in Diglis with Lower Wick, connecting the cycling and walking paths on either side of the river.

The bridge, part of the Big Lottery-funded Sustrans Connect 2 project, also forms part of the Diglis riverside renaissance project – a partnership between Worcestershire county and Worcester city councils.

Sustrans area manager Henry Harbord said: “It is wonderful that so many people have been so enthusiastic about this bridge.

“With the county council’s excellent new path across Cherry Orchard park nearing completion and the city council’s riverside improvements scheduled to start soon, the number of people using this bridge is sure to rise still higher.”