Road Harm Meeting (close passes of people cycling): meeting notes
INTRODUCTION
On the 20th February 2025 Bike Worcester attended a meeting with representatives from Member of Parliament, West Mercia Police, West Mercia Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC), Worcester City Council (WCiC), and Worcester County Council (WCoC), to discuss risks on our roads with an emphasis on danger to people travelling by bike. This blog exists as a brief set of notes of the meeting.
ATTENDEES
MP: Tom Collins
West Mercia: Marc Bayliss, Vicky Bristow, Yvonne Pepper, Isabel Hill
WCoC: Emily Barker, Tina McCloughlin
WCiC: David Sutton, Lynn Denham
Bike Worcester: Dan Brothwell, Beck Baker, Martin Staines, Sam Underwood, Tim Wall (chair Road Crime Reporter Network)
AGENDA
The meeting agenda is detailed below, which includes links to other documents. Not all items were covered during the meeting.
Introduction
Introductions of attendees
Meeting notes (who’s recording)
DB - Experience of cycling in city (difference in speed; witness to illegal driving)
City, County and Central Government aims
Gear Change (half of all journeys in towns and cities walked or cycled by 2030)
Decarbonisation of Transport (repeats aims of Gear Change)
Local Transport Plan 4 (active travel mentioned 59 times)
Active Travel Stakeholder Forum (repeats aims of Gear Change)
City Council Active Travel Plan (repeats aims of Gear Change)
Evidence that there’s a problem
Active travel survey (Section 6.0 Worcester Active Travel Corridor)
78% cycle every day / once or twice per week
64% do not feel confident cycling on the road
92% would cycle more if there were more dedicated cycle paths
Submissions to West Mercia are the tip of the iceberg
Possible improvements (NOT DISCUSSED)
City / County / West Mercia campaign (eg. Police Scotland)
Increased and shared communication output (eg. social media)
TRO review city centre
Changes to speed limits
Changes to road markings / road layouts
Changes to signage
Modal filters (how were historical filters introduced?)
Victim support and restorative justice
Survey of drivers in receipt of Advice / Warning letters and NIPs
Other
AOB
Next meeting
MEETING NOTES
Introduction
The purpose of the meeting was introduced by Dan Brothwell; the benefits of increased rates of cycling are well established, as is the perception and reality of road danger being a barrier to more people choosing to travel by bike. As regular users the Bike Worcester representatives are well placed to comment on road danger, the reality of cycling on the roads in and around Worcester, provide feedback to stakeholders regarding barriers to cycling, infrastructure design, policing (including responses to 3rd party reporting using Operation Snap) and to discuss further improvements.
City, County and Central Government aims
It was agreed by all attendees that at all levels of government there is a desire to increase rates of cycling, notably for short journeys to create modal shift from car use, and this provides multiple benefits to individuals and wider society. It was also acknowledged that both City Council and County Council have existing policies that state the national policy target of 50% of journeys to be by walking or cycling by 2030.
Evidence that there’s a problem
Bike Worcester provided an overview of the evidence to support the wider perception that there is a degree of danger to cycling on our roads, and that this, on the whole, is caused by anti social, dangerous and illegal driving. Links to the evidence are provided in the agenda above. It was acknowledged by all attendees that the evidence demonstrates that we need to proactively reduce road danger and the perception that cycling is dangerous if we are to increase rates of cycling in the city.
Martin Staines, Beck Baker and Sam Underwood described some of their experiences of cycling in and around Worcester, included negative interactions with people driving cars. Beck also read out a statement from Katie Collier about a particularly traumatic incident. Incidents as a result in antisocial, dangerous and illegal driving when cycling are so common place they are expected to occur.
As well as submitting video evidence of these incidents to West Mercia police, Bike Worcester volunteers have also compiled a collection of videos on YouTube here. We had hoped to show some of these videos to those at the meeting to demonstrate how frightening a close pass is and had requested that IT would be available for use. Unfortunately, we were disappointed to find that this was not set up and could not be used at the meeting.
General discussion
At this point there was a general discussion about the points made so far in the meeting. These related to three main topics of education, enforcement and infrastructure.
Infrastructure: The Traffic Regulation Orders (TROs) prohibiting cycling in the city centre was discussed. In September at a full County Council meeting Marc Bayliss had advised the TROs were being reviewed, acknowledging that the current lack of segregated infrastructure for cycling, and not being able to cycle through the city centre was a notable barrier to increase cycling rates in the city. This was also likely having a negative impact on the City Council Beryl Bike hire scheme. Lynn Denham (leader of the City Council) advised she would support changes to the TROs to enable and encourage more cycling (there will still be a requirement for the TRO to stop motor vehicles). Dan Brothwell asked Marc Bayliss on how the review was progressing and when the changes might be implemented, and Marc advised he would advise an answer following a discussion with Emily Barker.
Marc Bayliss made the point the LTN 1/20 meant that cycling infrastructure was now more expensive as everything had to be 4.0m wide, and designs had to meet this standard otherwise Active Travel England would not sign off on designs. Dan Brothwell advised this was not the case, that LTN 1/20 had plenty of sensible guidance regarding making improvements to existing streets, and that the recommended widths are dependent on expected usage rates. Tom Collins asked for clarity on this, and Dan Brothwell referenced a useful summary blog here on the Bike Worcester website.
To meet the agreed aims of reducing car use, a discussion relating to multi-modal journeys (e.g. bike then train) covered access to local railway stations. The poor/impassable access over several steep flights of stairs from the quiet Woodbury Lane (linked to the National Cycle Route 45) to the new Worcestershire Parkway station was raised by Bike Worcester as a serious oversight and substantial barrier to those wishing to travel by bike. The reason given for the lack of level access or the inclusion of a lift in the design was that Network Rail refuse access directly to stations from Public Rights of Way. As all Highways are public rights of way and pedestrians/cyclists can access other stations for example at Forgate Street, this was confusing.
The lack of new cycle infrastructure was raised by Bike Worcester and Marc Bayliss stated that 16% of the Highways budget was spent on Active Travel; this requires substantiation, looking back over spend in recent years and what is planned. Further clarification is required here to determine what percentage of the budget is dedicated to new cycle infrastructure (not resurfacing of footways, shared infrastructure, or one off projects such as Kepax).
Education and enforcement: There was a discussion regarding Operation Snap and West Mercia’s decision making and internal processes, comparisons with other forces and planned benchmarking by the Road Crime Reporter Network, and advice from regular reporters regarding a perceived lack of consistency with how incidents were dealt with. Dan Brothwell also communicated information obtained via a Freedom of Information request, that of 20 submissions where he had been advised they would be dealt with as a Notice of Intended Prosecution (NIP) in fact only 15% had been processed in this manner (another 10% downgraded to an advice / warning letter, 75% downgraded to No Further Action (NFA).
The reason for these changes in outcome following submission was due to the Traffic Processing Unit and concern around costs if thrown out of court. Tom Collins questioned whether this concern around failure (WMP mentioned an estimated 2% fail rate) was being given more weight than the aim to reduce road danger (if 98% of NIPs / Court cases were successful).
As a result some of the attendees no longer reported as it seemed to be a waste of time and of little benefit. The group was advised that Op Snap reports initially put through as NIPs and then downgraded would now receive an advice / warning letter so that driver’s are made aware of the incident. Tim Wall suggested to those present from West Mercia that they had lost the confidence of a key community group that were well placed to help reduce road danger and road crime.
With a small but growing number of Op Snap reporters, the number of incidents, both close passes and collisions continue to be underreported and Bike Worcester often receives verbal reports of incidences of aggression and danger on Worcester’s roads.
There was a discussion regarding Vision Zero, a strategy to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries. Dan Brothwell advised that in an earlier meeting with the previous Chief Constable Pippa Mills it was advised that there hadn’t been the political will for West Mercia and associated local authorities to adopt the principal of Vision Zero to help deliver a reduction in road danger. West Mercia representatives advised they were working towards Vision Zero, but it was pointed out there was no reference of this currently on their website. West Mercia also advised they were waiting for information regarding revised national guidelines regarding road danger strategy and policing.
However, at no point did any of the representatives present say that they would like to see zero deaths / an end to road deaths / one casualty is one too many.
West Mercia representatives advised that the force is one of five forces taking part in a pilot study with regard to developing and adopting best practice with regard to 3rd party reporting of road crime.
ACTIONS
Marc Bayliss / Emily Barker: Advise progress and timescale on TRO review
Dan Brothwell: share summary information of design guidance LTN 1/20 (complete)
All: agree date of next meeting
Suggested action: Vicky Bristow: Advise number of close pass cases that have been referred to the Magistrates’ Court, and the number of those that have been found ‘not guilty’.
Suggested action: Marc Bayliss: Provide detailed information on Highway's’ Active Travel spending and what has been spent on dedicated cycle infrastructure (not footways / shared)
