A 20MPH speed limit is planned for Tenbury Town Centre and a call has also been made for tougher action against vans parking illegally in the town.

The move has been promised by Ken Pollock, who represents Tenbury on Worcestershire County Council.

It is intended that the move will increase the safety of people walking and shopping in the town and will also act as a deterrent to heavy traffic that uses Tenbury as a short cut instead of using the A456 via Little Hereford.

“It has always been my intention that there should be a 20mph speed limit on Teme Street and Market Street to help slow traffic in general and make the raised table areas more likely to be shared by pedestrians and vehicles safer,” said Ken Pollock.

“I am disappointed that, so far, the county officers have preferred to wait for the second phase to be completed. In the absence of a time-table for that to happen, I have pressed again for the limit to be imposed now, to avoid vehicles driving too fast for the raised table ramps.”

He is also calling for tough action to be taken against vehicles that park partially on the footpath in Teme Street.

No date has been set for the second phase of the long-awaited improvements to Tenbury town centre - everything depends upon Tesco which will be partly funding the work when, and if, it eventually comes to the town.

Tesco first expressed an interest in opening a supermarket in the town in 2010 but progress was delayed by a protracted planning process.

After this was resolved, the supermarket chain put the project back because of financial problems. The store says that it remains committed to coming to Tenbury but no date has been given.

Meanwhile, work is going ahead to finish improvements to the centre of Tenbury.

It is hoped that this will be completed by the end of March, just 12 months behind schedule.

The project in 2015 was dogged by problems including a shortage of stone and changes to plans because of disruption to businesses in the town.

Working overnight also caused problems with complaints from people in the town centre who were unable to sleep.

It was decided not to complete the work in the run-up to Christmas and there was a further delay because of a desire to avoid bad winter weather which, in the end, did not materialise.

The completion of the scheme involves the replacement of broken kerbs, stone cutting and mortar work.

It involves new bollards on the footpath outside Bowketts because of reports of vehicles mounting the pavements in areas where the level of the road surface has been raised.

This has been caused because the road is so narrow and is needed to protect pedestrians.

There will be a bollard outside a property in Cross Street where water has been getting into a building from the road and footpath.

New white lines on the car park outside Bowketts supermarket are part of the finishing off work.