Unsafe car park behind Engine Works to be knocked down

The raised car park behind the listed Engine Works in Shrub Hill was found to be “structurally unsound” following an ironwork survey last year.

Worcester City Council has now given Worcestershire County Council planning permission to knock it down.

The site was condemned last year (Image: Worcestershire County Council)

A boundary wall between the Engine Works site and Tolladine Road will also be demolished.

City planners said the “car park apron structure” was built between 1905 and 1920 over the top of two railway sidings connecting the Shrub Hill industrial estate with the City Gas Works to the north of Tolladine Road and the Vulcan Iron Works, southwest of Shrub Hill Road.

They said demolishing the structure would “improve vistas to and from the Engine Works building, enhance the setting of this 19th century grade II listed building and ensure preservation of the associated retaining wall and any elements of the railway sidings surviving below the apron.”

“In addition,” say planners, “the demolition would enable use of the subway beneath Shrub Hill Road, which emerges beneath the apron, to be incorporated into the site’s broader future fully.”

Worcester Civic Society said it did not dispute the need to knock down the car park but questioned whether the southernmost boundary wall had to be demolished at the same time.

The county council says it doesn’t yet know what to do with the 425-metre plot of land.

Once used as a car park, the area has been cordoned off for years because it is unsafe to use.

Worcester Engine Works is one of several listed buildings included in ambitious plans for the regeneration of the Shrub Hill Quarter, a joint project between the city and county councils.

A draft planning document setting out a framework for the development of the area went out for public consultation earlier this year.