UPTON Town Council has backed a major highway improvement scheme for the town centre.

Work being planned includes a series of pavement “build outs” on the main road through the town and “slow” markings on the road down from Tunnel Hill.

A bus stop would be moved from Old Street into High Street, while improvements would be made to pavements in the High Street and small parts of adjoining roads.

The scheme was also set to include a one-way system along Court Street and Dunns Lane, but Coun George Wilson, who has been liaising with engineers from Worcestershire County Council’s highways department, said this had been dropped because of concerns from the police.

At a full town council meeting on Tuesday evening he told his colleagues the scheme would improve the appearance of the town, and asked they approve the plans in principal so that they could be put forward for public consultation. Although all councillors were in favour of work to improve the town centre, some were concerned over backing the scheme without seeing the finer details.

Coun Mary Lismore said: “How can we agree it when we don’t have feedback from the town?”

And deputy mayor Paul Bennett added: “We have seen no details and I think they need to be asked to come here and tell us what it is about before we agree anything.”

But mayor Andrea Morgan said a similar scheme had been proposed before, but never happened because there was not enough money to do it. “Unless we do something to get it put forward in a raw state that can be altered as it goes along then we will lose it,” she said.

Consensus was found when Coun Sheena Walsh proposed writing to support the plan “in principle”, adding they looked forward to working with the county council on the finer details.Work should start in January.