THE city council's leader says he wants to spark a fresh tourism push - focusing on Worcester's heritage and independent shops.

Councillor Adrian Gregson, who took over in May, told the Worcester News he intends to make the most of the new 'summer in the city' strategy.

As we first revealed two weeks ago the new Labour leadership wants to help launch a plan to market the main shopping area and visitor attractions like the riverside better.

A new website portal called summerinworcester.com has now officially been launched to get the efforts underway.

The big push will partly focus on so-called 'staycations', with more and more people opting to take short weekend breaks around Britain rather than go abroad, and what visitors can do for free.

It is being done alongside Worcester's Business Improvement District (BID), which represents city centre traders and other businesses.

Councillor Gregson said: "We're at the start of a process, there is a lot going on and we need to make sure we push it as far as possible.

"It's an opportunity to pull together all those different marketing aspects in conjunction with the likes of Worcester BID and make a difference.

"There is a concern footfall in the city is down, we need to see if there's more we can do to assist the independent shops, the retailers, the restaurants, the bars, and get more people into Worcester to see what the city offers."

The strategy has been given support from the opposition Conservative group, which says it will not pick holes in the idea despite calling the report which went to cabinet last month "wafer thin".

Councillor Marc Bayliss, Tory group leader, said: "I don't think we have any real problems with it.

"The paper's wafer thin, but we wouldn't be opposing something for the sake of it."

The issue of tourism in Worcester was also raised during a full council meeting this week, where the Tory group accused the leadership of trying to "downgrade" its importance.

When Labour swept to power in May it decided to dish out its new cabinet titles and in doing so deleted references to tourism.

But during the debate Councillor Gregson insisted he did not know of any other politician putting more passion and effort into the tourism cause than him.