Worcester city centre bike store to close
A cycling charity has said it is "gutted" by the closure of a bike store, intended to reduce bicycle thefts in Worcester city centre.Bike Worcester said the free facility in Friary Walk shopping centre - formerly Crowngate - has been used to securely store 28,000 bikes a year.The space, which has now been leased to a rent-paying customer, will close on Wednesday, four years after it opened.Dan Brothwell, from the charity, said it was "as good a place to lock our bikes as we've found anywhere in the world".
Mr Brothwell paid tribute to the shopping centre's manager for making the facility available to cyclists for free."Bike Worcester were approached by Mike Lloyd in the depths of Covid with an idea of making an unused commercial unit available as a place for people to store bikes," he said. "It would be under the watchful eyes of CCTV with the security team regularly checking in. It was a no-brainer."Mr Lloyd said the centre had been "incredibly proud" of the role it had played in "encouraging more sustainable travel", adding it "was the right thing to do during a difficult time for the city"."Now, as we celebrate a full return to occupancy at Friary Walk - a real milestone for the local economy - we must transition the unit back into retail use," he said.
The store also included a repair station for people to carry out minor services of their bikes.Mr Brothwell said any bikes which were found unlocked would be secured, along with details on how to get it released - for which Mr Brothwell himself admitted to having been grateful on occasions when he had been distracted and forgotten to lock his own bike."It is with a heavy heart we say farewell to the Friary Walk bike store," he said. "We've used it to store our bikes, fix our bikes, and help others fix their bikes."It's been instrumental in growing Bike Worcester."Mr Lloyd said Friary Walk was "committed to supporting active travel" and was working to install external bike racks.He added that the stands and racks from the bike store were being donated to the city council for potential relocation.
Follow BBC Hereford & Worcester on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
30 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Highgate cemetery families confront bosses in row over new building
Dozens of grave owners confronted Highgate cemetery's bosses and their architects this week in a growing row over a maintenance and toilet block in a part of the graveyard where almost 200 people were recently buried. The cemetery called Tuesday's private meeting in an attempt to placate objectors by setting out adjustments to a new building that is part of an £18m redevelopment of the graveyard. But the meeting descended into heckles, chants, a walkout, legal threats, demands for compensation and accusations that cemetery was putting the needs of tourists above mourners. A recording of the meeting, heard by the Guardian, revealed unanimous and often furious opposition to what grave owners have called 'the bunker'. The controversial block is due to be located on the mound, an area of the cemetery of about 170 recent graves including those of the sociologist Prof Stuart Hall, the artist Gustav Metzger, and the critic Tom Lubbock. Among those objecting were the actor Bertie Carvel, whose mother, Pat, was buried on the mound in 2019. He told the meeting it was 'crazy' to locate the 'brutalist' building in part of the cemetery 'most frequented by active mourners'. Pleading with the cemetery's managers, he said: 'I'm sure it is not deliberately insensitive but given the strength of feeling please, please, please will you stop. Go away and rethink.' His fellow actor Pam Miles demanded that the cemetery pay for the cost of exhuming the remains of her actor husband, Tim Pigott-Smith, if the scheme goes ahead. 'It leaves us no option but to exhume. In the circumstances it would be fair to expect you to repay us for these expensive graves.' Staff from Hopkins Architects, who designed the scheme, were repeatedly heckled and shouted down as they argued the building could not be placed in any other part of the 14.5-hectare (36-acre) graveyard. A lawyer, who afterwards asked not to be named, said he and others were planning to sue the cemetery for breach of contract. The man, who owns a double plot where his partner his buried, told the meeting: 'What we bought was a site with open views and you are changing that. You need to think about whether there are potential legal ramifications from people like me if you carry on with this.' Separately, a letter to the cemetery's trustees signed by more than 30 grave owners, claimed the charity had breached consumer rights of those who had recently bought plots by failing to inform them of the plan to redevelop the cemetery. It also threatened to report the trust to the Charity Commission over consultation failures and reputational damage to the cemetery. And it warned they were prepared to allege mismanagement to the National Heritage Lottery Fund, at a time when the cemetery is seeking £18m of funding for the redevelopment. At the meeting architects defended the building. One denied it was brutalist, saying: 'That's just not correct. There's more poetry to it than that.' One of the objectors shouted: 'Bollocks.' Undeterred, the architects outlined proposed changes to the block including removing an accessible toilet and reducing the height and width of the building. At this point Natalie Chambers, whose parents are both buried on the mound, left the meeting in protest. As she left she said: 'I'm appalled. You don't listen to us one bit. My father was in the Warsaw ghetto. And you are so disgusting I don't even want to come to the cemetery any more.' There followed a chant from the room of: 'We don't want the building.' A screenwriter, Anna Seifert-Speck, whose husband was buried on the mound in 2019, said: 'We are asking you to reconsider bulldozing over our complaints. Lowering the thing a little bit isn't going to work, it's not want we want.' Another grave owner said: 'It's a graveyard for us. It's not a tourist site.' A barrister said the mound area was the 'worst possible' location for the building. 'There is a concentration of nothing but contemporary graves there. That's why you have so many people in this room. My young daughter lies there. 'You must see that the notion of having toilets right next to the graves of loved ones causes pain and anguish. The solution is simple: don't build on the mound.' Speaking after the meeting, Carvel said: 'Mourning in a cemetery ranks higher than visiting a place of historic interest. The force of those arguments must have rung loud to anyone with an ounce of humanity. But we are also dealing with a corporate decision-making process and I remain somewhere between anxious and cynical about the extent to which that organisation will look itself in the mirror and admit it was wrong.' The architects and trustees agreed to reflect on the feedback and report back to the grave owners in the coming weeks. Elizabeth Fuller, the chair of the Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust, acknowledged failures in the way recent grave owners had been consulted about the plans and pledged 'better communication in the future'. At the start of the meeting she said: 'As required by the planning process, and by [the] reality [of the site], we have had to balance the benefits and harms of all constituent elements. We will commit to amending our plans wherever possible.'
The Sun
36 minutes ago
- The Sun
Sheffield Wednesday placed under transfer embargo by EFL as owner is accused of holding club ‘hostage'
SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY have been placed under a registration embargo for failure to pay wages on time. The Owls will be prevented from adding players to their squad for the 2025/26 Championship season due to multiple breaches of EFL regulations on payment obligations. 3 3 The club were charged this week after failing to pay both players and staff members their wages for May. The sanction has heaped yet more pressure on Owls owner Dejphon Chansiri, who has apologised profusely for the delayed wages, to sell the club. An American consortium is looking to buy the Yorkshire outfit but has had TWO PROPOSALS rejected by Thai tycoon Chansiri. Labour MP for Sheffield South East, Clive Betts, is leading the calls for Chansiri to sell, saying: "He must accept that he needs to sell Wednesday to prevent the complete collapse of the club. "We as fans deserve better. "It breaks my heart to see the club I have followed all my life being held hostage by an owner who clearly has no interest or care for us. "It is clear that Chansiri does not have the ability or resources to fund and invest in Sheffield Wednesday." Wednesday have vowed to pay players and staff as soon as possible. JOIN SUN VEGAS: GET £50 BONUS 3 A club statement read: "The club continue to seek a resolution regarding outstanding salaries due for the month of May at the earliest possible opportunity. "Mr Chansiri sincerely apologises to all players, coaches and staff affected and everyone connected with the club." Former Premier League star, 39, sent off after 55 seconds for headbutting rival's BACK in EFL clash Chansiri's ten-year ownership of Wednesday has been filled with financial issues. The Yorkshire club were deducted six points in the 2021/21 season, in which they were relegated to League One, for breaching spending rules. And they were placed under registration embargoes in both the 2023/24 and 24/25 campaigns. Wednesday ended the 2024/25 Championship season in 12th place.
The Guardian
41 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Wise goes to the US. Will its founder's supercharged voting rights follow?
Back in 2021, the arrival on the London stock market of Wise, a rapidly expanding money transfer company, generated a feelgood factor at a useful moment. It came a month after overhyped Deliveroo flopped on debut. And, since Wise was a pure fintech business, as opposed to a pizza delivery outfit with an app, there was reason to think the UK might be getting its act together in the sector that politicians swoon over. Shoreditch's finest, and its Estonian founders, would show the way in UK fintech. Wise sported a £9bn valuation. Now the company wants to switch its primary listing to New York in search of a wider pool of investors, more active trading in its shares and 'a potential pathway to inclusion in major US [stock market] indices'. A secondary listing will be retained in London, but we know what usually happens. Nine-tenths of the share trading gravitates to the primary location. The obligatory description on these occasions – 'a fresh blow for London' – applies. Wise, with revenues of £1.2bn and underlying pre-tax profits of £282m, is a bad one to see succumb to the temptations of New York. Rachel Reeves may take note. The chancellor is cajoling UK pension funds to shove cash into private markets (at a moment when even private equity insiders worry that the golden years for returns could be over) but it is the public markets that are more in need of love and affection from No 11. She won't do it (almost certainly), but the first step would be to cut the UK's uncompetitive 0.5% rate of stamp duty on share purchases. There is plenty of evidence that a reduction would pay for itself in increased trading. Yet let's not overlook a weirdness about Wise's move – and an unanswered question. The oddness is that the company, now so keen on getting into a US index, never tried to enter a UK one. At flotation, its dual-class share structure meant it could not be included in FTSE indices. Why not now join the grown-ups? With a £12bn valuation these days, Wise would rank halfway up the Footsie. It would be a big fish. The danger in having the main listing in New York is that the firm will be a relative minnow in a tech pond populated by the trillion-dollar likes of Nvidia. But that's a risk its founder, Kristo Käärmann, is clearly prepared to take in pursuit of greater US visibility for 'major US growth opportunities'. Or perhaps the dual voting structure is a bigger part of the story. Wise's statement described the US listing as having 'a structure that aligns with US market practices including those of our US-listed tech peers, which we believe allows us to remain laser-focused on delivering our mission'. That sounds suspiciously like a reference to the enhanced voting rights that now allow Käärmann to own 18% of the shares but have 50% of the votes. Such unequal arrangements cause little fuss in the US, but they remain controversial in the UK, even if they are now allowed for index-inclusion purposes after a change in the rules a couple of years ago. A key point about Käärmann's supercharged rights, however, is that they are due to expire next summer under a 'sunset clause' agreed at listing. Wise could, if it wished, ask its UK shareholders for an extension but that may cause a row in itself – a sunset is meant to mean what it says. Perhaps the company thinks it is easier to wrap continued enhanced rights into a package where the main element is the change of main listing. Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion Käärmann offered zero clarity on whether he wants to keep his supercharged rights. 'It depends on the structure we are going to land on,' he said, adding that all would be clear in the formal circular later this month. Curious. London's acceptance of dual rights – but, critically, only with a five-year sunset clause – was meant to be a way to entice UK tech founders to list in London. It was a pointless change if it just encourages them to leave when the sun is about to set.
