Tenbury Wells Road Closures

There are a number of times in the next couple of months when Teme Street will be closed.

The Civic Parade (Usually from the library to St Mary's Church) Sunday 22nd October 10 minute closure between 9.40am and 10.15am.  Also 10 minute closure between 11am and 11.45am

Two Minutes Silence  Saturday 11th November 11am

Remembrance Day Parade Sunday 12th November 10 minute closure between 10.25am and 10.55am. Also 10 minute closure between 11.50am and 12.05pm.

Christmas Lights Ceremony 18th November 16.30pm to 17.30pm

Road Resurfacing. The official closure is 27th November to 1st December but the road should only be closed for one evening and night.  (I'll update when known)

Santa Parade Saturday 2nd December 16.30pm to 17.30pm

Strike Six!

Well that one lasted less that two weeks.

Overnight closures to Market Street

Ringway have announced that there will be overnight closures to Market Street, between 9th March & 22nd March but as yet the full details aren't available.

Ringway have a blog to keep us up to date on the happenings.

Tenbury Bridge Work 6 Down, 4 to Go

There seems to be little visable progress this week except for work on the railings, which are slowly reappearing coated with the English Heritage prescribed white colour. 

Hopefully progress will now be swift, and the road bed replaced so that Tenbury can get back on track, with the bridge opening by March 16th.

Tenbury Bridge Work 5 Down, 5 to Go

Well, we are half way through the Tenbury Teme Bridge refurbishment.  There is less visible progress this week but the strong smell of solvents coming from the tenting probably means that things are happening out of view.

Many of the damaged blocks under the arches have now been replaced, and I can confirm that there are definitely large salmon in the Teme. (Either that or I sniffed too much solvent)  A large fish broke water under the arch just after I took the photo.  It had gone before I could take another!

Harriett Baldwin MP &  County Cllr Ken Pollock were visiting shopkeepers today to discuss the project.

First Windfall Draw Prize Awarded

The winner of the first Tenbury Windfall Draw, local resident Victor Woodford, is presented with his cheque and iPod touch in Tenbury Library by the Town Mayor Liz Weston.

Tenbury's Grand Windfall runs until the end of June, so there are still five more chances to win £1000, or an iPod touch - or both if your card is the first out and has at least five green apple stickers!

Completed Loyalty Cards for future draws can be handed in at Tenbury Library or the Pump Rooms. Entries for the next draw close on February 29th.

Almost every business in Tenbury Wells is taking part in the "Grand Windfall" Loyalty Scheme, which makes it easy for shoppers to collect the 15 stickers they need to complete a Loyalty Card and enter the draw. A red apple sticker is awarded with any purchase and if over £5 is spent, the shopper also receives a green apple, filling their loyalty card faster and helping them towards the five (or more) green apple stickers they need to win the iPod touch. Loyalty cards are available from participating shops and at the Library.

Any ideas anyone?

THS to spend £1.75M on new classrooms

After a number of previous unsuccessful bids, Tenbury High School has been awarded £1.25M from the Worcestershire County Council Capital Building Programme 2012/13.  A further £0.5M will come from the schools own reserves.

The money will allow the replacement of several temporary wooden classrooms with an 8 classroom teaching facility with additional seminar rooms, offices and toilets.

The project is currently at the planning stage and is due to start Easter 2012 for completion Spring 2013.

Further details.

Tenbury Bridge Work 4 Down, 6 to Go

More progress this week, with much of the downstream pavement being encased in concrete.

The reason for the scaffolding is now clear.  It is to support the "tenting" to allow the (I guess) sandblasting (or similar) of the railings to take them back to bare metal so that modern high specification coatings can be applied.

Hopefully the light coating of snow will not slow the proceedings.

It seems that the North car park has been full to capacity on many occasions last week & a number of people have questioned whether the diversionary routes are really being treated as promised in cold weather.

The Town was very busy Saturday morning, perhaps because of the threat of snow, but I found that I had to queue in quite a few shops (and not the usual ones) which must be a positive sign for some.

The first "Tenbury Windfall" draw takes place on Monday.

Is Morrisons Environmental Policy harming Tenbury?

Morrisons lorries and fuel tankers are a common site in Tenbury even though the nearest store is 10 miles away.

Morrison vehicles regularly "short cut" through Tenbury to save the 2.3 miles extra driving up the A49 to the A456.  Of course there is no legal reason why they shouldn't use the A4112, although it is signposted as unsuitable for heavy goods vehicles.

Morrisons do have an Environmental Policy and one of their measurements is how many cases they move per kilometre, so they plan to use the shortest routes.

In logistics, we measure route planning efficiency in terms of how many cases per kilometre we are able to move. Over the last two years we have increased the number of cases per km by 12.7%.

A Morrisons driver did come amiss this week when he misread all the diversion & road closed signs and ended up in the Old Cattle Market temporary car park.  He also went on to prove that turning left out of the site is virtually impossible for a vehicle of that size.

Tenbury Bridge Work 3 Down, 7 to Go

It seems that the contractors are making steady progress.

The upstream pavement bed has been set with concrete and part of the road bed has been dug up.

Scaffolding has appeared, although at this stage, to my untrained eye, I have not idea what it's for.

The car parking situation seems to have been mostly resolved, and there seems to be less problems with cars arriving to find no space available.  Some shops have publicly complained about a steep downturn in trade, whilst other have reported (much less publicly) that their figures are holding up and they are doing better than expected.  Interestingly where they are able to compare their figures with other branches in other towns, then the are pleasantly surprised.

The number of completed windfall cards is rapidly increasing, with the collecting boxes becoming very heavy.  Only time will tell where the shoppers have come from, but stickers are being collected by the thousands.

The date of the first draw has been scheduled for 6th February, with the Tenbury Mayor due to draw the winning ticket.

Tenbury on the Radio

Tenbury has featured today on a couple of local radio stations.


BBC Hereford & Worcester  (at 2:06 & 2:34)


and 


BBC Shropshire (at 1:43)

Tenbury Bridge Work 2 Down, 8 to Go

So two weeks in. The upstream pavement has now been excavated and more service pipes exposed. Whilst at the Northern end of the Bridge work has started on backfilling the pavement area with concrete. 

The arch nearest the Shropshire bank has also been cleared of vegetation which will greatly assist flow in the event of a spate.

Richard Attwood, Engineering Project Manager at Worcestershire County Council, confirmed this week that despite what appeared to be a slow start, the work was proceeding to schedule and that they were still working to a completion date of March 16th.

The problems with parking rubble on, but following the request for people parking cars all day to use the car park at Burford Village Hall, the situation has eased considerably.

The Tenbury Windfall scheme seems to be going from strength to strength and has captured the imagination of shoppers in Tenbury Wells, with apple stickers being handed out when shoppers make a purchase. The scheme has already proved so popular that 100,000 stickers have been distributed to Tenbury's shops, pubs and cafes in just one week!

There have been suggestions that a very few people have tried to abuse the scheme, but actions have been put in place to reduce this and the Police have indicated that they would be willing to investigate any fraudulent behaviour.

Despite the gloom of catastrophic trading results predicted by some shopkeepers, Ashley's bakers from Cleobury Mortimer have opened a new branch in Teme Street and when I visited on Saturday were doing a very brisk trade.  So they should, their buns are delicious, but I do now fear for my waistline which has previously been protected (to some extent) by the lack of availability in Tenbury. 

Tenbury Bridge Work 1 Down, 9 to Go

My first visit to the Bridge site since the closure.  Seems that so far  Volker Fitzpatrick have managed to expose the pipes under one pavement.

I wonder who's pipes they are.  I can only guess they are BT's as there is no way they would contain a gas or liquid!

I had heard stories about much leaning on railings and smoking, but not a lot of activity.  Hopefully the speed of progress will speed up and not slow down.  It seems that no early completion bonus was included in the contract, and if the project runs over, only WCC's additional costs are covered by way of a penalty, so probably only about 0.1% of the contact cost per week.

As nice as it has been to have a much quieter shopping experience in town, the drive around the diversionary route has added considerably to my working week.

On a more positive note, the Windfall scheme seems to be doing well. Too early to tell if it has attracted or retained any shoppers, but everyone seems to know about it and some have already completed their first card.

The shuttle bus, now seems to have a notice in it's window declaring what it is, but I haven't worked out why it doesn't run during the period the children are going to school or coming home (unless it's the obvious - the bus is used on a school pick up run).

Much has been said about the car park on the North end of the bridge. Whilst it seems rather short sighted that the shop owners and workers park there (as it does when they park in Teme Street), thus stopping any potential shoppers parking, but then, where should they park.  I think everyone missed the fact that so many shop owners / workers now live out of town. Hopefully, WCC will make additional parking available.  Two very good options have been presented to them.

I think this proves that the parking planned for the Tesco site is inadequate, and unless Tesco make off site provision for their staff, there will be trouble ahead.  It is almost inconceivable that many of their staff will arrive by public transport as envisaged by their management planners, but then if the CEO didn't know that their customers were deserting them in droves over Christmas  anything is possible.

Car Parking During the Tenbury Teme Bridge Closure.

Two temporary car parks have been created for use during the closure of Teme bidge.

Free carparks have been created at either end of the Bridge – marked in blue on this map. 

• Car Parks will be open 24 hours a day. 
• The bridge will remain open to pedestrians at all times. 
• Vistors arriving via the A456 may park on the Burford side of the river and walk across the bridge into the town. 
• Visitors arriving via routes from the South may park in car parks in the town. 
• There will be turning facilities at the bridge end of Teme Street for delivery vehicles and lorries to enable them to turn around and leave town from the direction in which they entered – area marked in red on this map. 

Click here for full car parking details.

Click here for the bridge information from WCC

Teme Bridge Closure - Fire Cover Contingency Arrangements

Tenbury Wells Fire Station is crewed solely by "On Call" firefighters, who respond to the fire station in Burford when required to attend emergency calls, when alerted by a pager  There are two fire engines based at Tenbury Wells Fire Station.

From Sunday 8th January, one of the fire engines based at Tenbury Wells Fire Station will be relocated to a temporary fire station at Bromyard Road Industrial Estate.

Read the full Fire Cover Contingency Arrangements on the Tenbury Fire Station Website.

If you have any queries or concerns, a fire crew will be in Tenbury Town Centre on Saturday 7th January between 9am and 11am to answer any questions.

Station Commander Chris Churchill from Malvern Fire Station, who is the lead officer for the fire service plans will also be available to speak to, as well as other staff from various departments.

Tenbury Launches a Town Guide App

A new Smartphone application has been launched which gives instant access to everything you need to know about Tenbury Wells.  The app can be installed from both the itunes store for iPhones and from the Android Marketplace for all Android phones.

The app gives instant access to all local businesses and where available their websites.  It also allows easy access to lots of other useful information.

Early next year, it will also start to detail special offers from local shops.

The app has been developed on behalf of Tenbury Town Council and funded under the TWO4B project.

Pirouetting Truck Avoids the Teme

A Kingsmill delivery truck on route to the Spar supermarket narrowly missed a dip in the Teme at Tenbury Wells this morning.

Whilst turning in the old cattle market site, the lorry skidded on ice and slid through the boundary fence and partly demolished a wall.

The truck stopped short of the railings,  Luckily no one was hurt.

Town Council to create more parking.

Tenbury Town Council have agreed in principle for the existing Civic Amenity site to be relocated to the Bromyard Road Business Park.

The Town Civic Amenity Site (Town Dump)

The site is currently situated on land owned by the Town Council and leased to Worcester County Council who in turn let it to Severn Waste who run the facility.

The Town Council (or rather the Council Tax payers) have to pay full business rates on the site, estimated at more than £300, but only receive £1 a year in rent from Worcester County Council.

The site which attract scores of complaints each year, mainly due to the difficult access and steep stairs, was due to be replaced years ago. When Severn Trent took over Worcestershire's waste contract they had to put aside a considerable sum of money to find a new site and create a modern facility.

Although lip service has been given to this over the years, no real attempt has been made to move the project forward.

Hopefully this will now happen in 2012, and a modern facility can be created, which will allow easier and safer access and allow for much more recycling.  Most of the materials "dumped" in the skip at the moment such as wood, metal, bricks, concrete etc go to landfill whereas they could be recycled.

Once the facility has been moved, the resulting space can be turned back into parking spaces.

Free parking in Tenbury over Christmas period

Following recent pressures affecting the national economy and reports from local businesses about a slow down in trade, Malvern Hills District Council will be providing free car parking concessions in the week before Christmas.

From the 19^th to the 24^th December, pay and display charges will be waived in its car parks

Councillor Paul Cumming, Portfolio Holder for Finance & Resources at MHDC said:

“This council considers the support of local business and the local economy to be a priority and we are keen to assist local traders who have reported generally sluggish sales. We want to help give trade a boost and encourage more people to shop in our towns in the week leading up to Christmas. “