In January’s Civic Matters column, Gill Pawson, chair of Vale of Evesham Civic Society argues that more needs to be done to make the streets of Evesham town centre more attractive to investors, visitors and residents.
By Gill Pawson
WE START the year in campaigning mode.
If Evesham is to continue to attract new businesses to the town centre, which means empty shops filled and properties maintained – then we need to do more to improve our public realm.
A more attractive town centre will help encourage shoppers and visitors back into our historic market town which has seen a lot of new independent shops and cafes open in the last 12 months.
Yet as I start this month’s column, the urgent need to find a solution to vehicles entering Bridge Street and Market Square in contravention of the traffic regulations applying to these two pedestrian priority areas is ongoing.
Worcestershire County Council decided not to fund the installation of new automatic rising bollards that are currently stored in their highways yard due to financial constraints.
Gill Pawson and Ian Stanton from Vale of Evesham Civic Society, originally alerted the Observer to the issue in August 2024.
We now learn following the Observer report last week that the combined intervention of our local district councillors means that the £23,000 funding shortfall has hopefully been secured.
All we need now is a commitment for the bollards to be maintained. Who is going to pay for this I ask?
Let’s hope this is swiftly resolved as traffic using a pedestrian street is a public health issue and gives the image that we can’t look after our town.
Throughout the year we need to achieve a much more co-ordinated approach to keeping our streets clean.
At the moment, we have three levels of local government working on different aspects, which includes a WDC contract with FCC waste management for the daily cleaning of the town centre.
Evesham has an active anti-litter volunteer group who do sterling work but can only do so much. We also have some residents doing their bit, having signed up to Wychavon’s ‘adopt a street’ initiative.
Evesham Place Board has bought a piece of kit with powerful suction to attack some of the ‘grot spots’ in the retail area of the town.
Members of the civic society regularly do their bit by removing out of date fly posters from windows and street furniture. Despite this, many pathways and streets are missed.
At the end of the autumn, once all the leaves have fallen, the pavements become strewn with wet, slippery leaves, which combined with litter to leave an unattractive and often dangerous stretch to navigate.
Last year was worse than ever and in December, at VECS’s request, WDC cleared Port Street pavements of its weeds.
It seems that we cannot rely on the councils to sweep pavements clean throughout the town. So how should we tackle this problem?
This is an issue that needs to be not only on the agenda of civic society meetings, but at meetings of the county, district and town Councils.
Visit valeofeveshamcivicsociety.org.uk or email Gill at [email protected] to get involved.
