The Budget 2018 announced the creation of a £150 million fund for high-impact schemes to help address congestion pinch points and to reduce congestion on local roads. Following on from this, in the summer of 2019 the Government invited local authorities to bid for a share of this fund, with £75 million to be awarded in each financial year 2021 to 2022 and 2022 to 2023.

The fund aims to boost economic growth by tackling barriers on the local highway network that may be restricting the movement of goods and people, and it will operate in two stages. This first stage of the application process asked local authorities to submit brief expressions of interest (referred to as 'bids') by 31 January 2020. Worcestershire County Council submitted two bids.

Powick to Malvern and Ketch to Kempsey corridors (combined bid)

Increasing realistic travel choice is critical to enable our economy to diversify and grow. Nationally and at the local level, evidence and experience consistently prove that even small shifts away from single-occupancy car use to walking, cycling and passenger transport can deliver significant improvements to traffic flow and to wider benefits, including reduced ambient air pollution, which in turn helps deliver public health benefits.

Both corridors in this combined bid are very busy transport corridors, and with proposed future developments, travel demand is likely to increase. To offset this, and in order to lock-in the traffic capacity uplift that is being delivered by the Southern Link road Major Scheme, this bid seeks, on the two corridors, to deliver:

• walking and cycling improvements
• public transport infrastructure
• a network of Real Time Information (RTI) traffic monitoring including Intelligent Traffic Light Priority (TLP)*

Capturing corridor-long, smart information will allow traffic flows to be managed more efficiently. By being able to uniquely identify buses, and in turn to identify buses that are running late, this ‘corridor-long’ traffic management will be able to help scheduled bus services meet timetable punctuality and reliability targets; naturally, this will have a knock-on benefit for all traffic on those key corridors.

* This new technology allows every single unique ‘traffic’ movement to be captured (it can distinguish between cars, buses, trucks and vans, and it can pick-out people walking and people cycling), and it can capture this information along whole corridors.

For more information on the bid, please download the South Worcester bid document (PDF).

The Evesham bid

Evesham’s role as a market town, offering a range of services and facilities to a wide rural hinterland, combined with its tight, historic network of narrow roads and limited number of both river and railway crossings conspire to create a situation where demand to travel far exceeds network supply, gridlocking the town with severe socio-economic impacts. 

Aligned with the Evesham Transport Strategy, the Evesham bid seeks to address this problem with a range of measures across multiple modes of transport.

If successful, the bid will help with the delivery of:

• a walking and cycling network
• public realm enhancement in the town centre (on Port Street)
• a network of Real Time Information (RTI) traffic monitoring including Intelligent Traffic Light Priority (TLP)*
• traffic-capacity improvements to the Badsey Road junction (A46/B4035) on the A46
• an improved Badsey Lane Non-Motorised User (NMU) crossing of the A46

* This new technology allows every single unique ‘traffic’ movement to be captured (it can distinguish between cars, buses, trucks and vans, and it can pick-out people walking and people cycling), and it can capture this information along whole corridors.

For more information on the bid, please download the Evesham bid document (PDF).

More information on the completed schemes can be found on the following pages:

• Hoobrook Link Road Kidderminster
• A4440 Southern Link Road, Worcester
• Parkway Railway Station

Copies if the following bids are available on request:

• Independent Technical Assessor's Final Report
• Local Transport Body Funding
• Prioritisation of Scheme

Worcestershire County Council has submitted a bid to the Department for Transport for the Local Highways Maintenance Challenge Fund 2017/18. Please download the Tranche 2A bid document for further information.

Worcestershire County Council has submitted a bid to the Department for Transport for the Local Highways Maintenance Challenge Fund 2019/20. Please download the Tranche 2B bid document for further information.