Private eye care for Worcester

Driving in: the M5, M42 and A38

Leave the M5 at Junction 6 or 7 and join the M42 towards Birmingham, coming off onto the A38 for the run into Edgbaston. Stay on the A38 the whole way only if the M42 is disrupted — it is markedly slower otherwise. Allow the better part of an hour rather than the fifty minutes a map suggests; that stretch of the M42 rarely runs at its quoted speed during the working day.

If you are not driving: Foregate Street, then a taxi from Snow Hill

Worcester has two stations, and only one helps here. Foregate Street runs direct to Birmingham Snow Hill, with some services continuing to Moor Street, in around fifty-five minutes with no change — that is the station to book. Shrub Hill mostly goes to New Street by a different route through Bromsgrove, the wrong side of the city for George Road, so check which station a ticket has actually put you on before you travel; it is an easy mistake to make.

Unlike the towns closer to Birmingham on the Cross-City line, this train does not finish the job. Snow Hill and Moor Street both sit on the far side of the city centre from George Road, the best part of a mile off, and there is no direct bus or tram that makes the walk sensible. Take a short taxi from the station rather than attempting it on foot — a few minutes and a small fare, not a place to economise on a day that is already asking a lot of you.

Given how long the whole journey is, it is worth weighing the train against asking somebody to drive you instead, in a way that would not be worth raising for a shorter trip. Be honest with them about what that means: the drive itself is close to an hour each way, and, for the reason below, it needs doing twice, not once.

The villages, and the two sides of the city

Patients from Barbourne and St John’s join the same route out of the city on the M5. From Kempsey, Callow End, Powick and Hallow, the roads in are narrower and slower before you reach the motorway at all, so add a little time to the figures below rather than treating the M5 alone as the whole journey.

The dilating drops, and why a lift means two trips, not one

A first appointment usually includes drops to dilate your pupils, and you should not drive for some hours afterwards while your eyes recover — this applies whether you drove yourself in or arrived some other way. From Worcester, where the drive in is close to an hour, that is not a rule to work out in the car park. If someone is driving you, they need to know from the start that this is two trips, not one: bringing you in the morning and collecting you again later, once your eyes have settled, rather than a single drop-off. If you are driving yourself, arrange in advance for someone to collect you, or plan to wait in Birmingham until it is safe to drive home.