THOUSANDS of people travel to work in Worcester from towns such as Evesham and Pershore on a daily basis.

We suspect the vast majority of them make their journeys by car, despite the encouragement of governments at both national and local level to use public transport.

Our front page report today shows one of the reasons why many people prefer to drive to work. Commuters heading back to Evesham and Pershore from Worcester after a hard day’s work can get a train from Foregate Street at 5.21pm on weekdays. But if they miss that – and those who finish work at 5pm face a mad dash while those who clock off at 5.30pm clearly have no chance – the next train is not until 6.49pm. What a great way to encourage people to use their cars.

The train users we quote today all face the same problem – hanging around in the city centre for more than an hour before they can head home. Passengers’ pressure group the Cotswold Line Promotion Group says the issue is one of the weaknesses of the current train timetable. Train operator First Great Western, meanwhile, merely mouths platitudes about the difficulty of altering timetables. We are sure that is the case. But surely such difficulties can be overcome; particularly when doing so would attract more people to use its services.

First Great Western should look again at this problem. Providing just one more service at, say, 6pm would be a boon for commuters and, we suspect, profitable for the company.