AS you may or may not know, there has long been a direct line from Bristol to Birmingham stopping at Bromsgrove and passing just outside Worcester.

There are regular trains to Birmingham which join this line at Bromsgrove and get to New Street in about 45 minutes as opposed to the other line that takes a lot longer to get to Snow Hill.

The new Parkway station will be on this line so will allow us to get to Birmingham faster. Further afield, there are plans not quite confirmed yet, that existing cross-country trains will stop here to allow speedy travel to Bristol and points south-west or Birmingham and points north-east too.

The position of this station just over the motorway puts it within easy cycling range of most of the city too. Part of the design of the new station has long been to include a bridge over the bypass to allow walking and cycling from St Peter's without needing to cross this busy road.

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Such an unassisted crossing would have been difficult at the best of times, and somewhat lethal if one was attempting to commute to Birmingham this way, which many will want to do. The bridge will hopefully see a lot of use. I am looking forward to trying it out on a daytrip to Bristol with a much reduced journey time than today.

There are also many who currently commute to Worcester from up and down the motorway, adding to our notorious congestion and carbon monoxide levels. Some of these commuters will hopefully be persuaded to use the train and cycle into town, which would be a great help to our air quality.