ENGINEERS are not giving up their battle to solve the mysteriously poor performance of a pair of city centre automatic bollards.

The £30,000 bollards in Angel Street, Worcester, have never worked properly since they were first installed in January 2002. The barriers are supposed to lower into the ground when 999 vehicles, buses, taxis and delivery vans approach but have been left permanently lowered because they would often not lower on demand.

Despite calls from the city's deputy mayor, Councillor Allah Ditta, to have them removed, the city council is pressing on with the scheme.

Engineers from the authority, baffled by the cause of the difficulties, met with contractors ATG to discuss plans to improve "communication" between vehicles and the bollards.

"ATG brought five or six solutions to the meeting and picked one which they think is the best option. We are going to consider it and, once they've sent all the specifications, we will implement it," said transportation officer Andy Perry.

"It's a different type of detection technology they are using. Now we are getting the two technologies to talk to each other. ATG is very confident this is the best solution and if they are confident we are happy to go along with that."