It was good to see so many people at the exhibition on Saturday morning! If you haven’t yet seen the County Council’s plans for upgrading the London Road, please click on this link

If you haven’t yet submitted comments/feedback on the new scheme, please do so online here

Please note: you will need to click on Next to complete the feedback form.  David and I are very keen that everyone fills this in.  Among the concerns that were brought to my attention on Saturday were the lack of attention given to cyclists, the narrowing of Old High Street at its junction with London Road in respect of the advent of Waitrose, safety concerns about the London Road/Windmill Road junction, and the removal of the subway at a cost of tens of thousands of pounds.  People were also concerned about the lack of planting in London Road

Then please report it online to the County Council’s Report a Problem site.  I have set up a sticky link to this from the central orange toolbar.  Do let David and me know if your complaint is not dealt with.

Congratulations to Central and N Headington Residents’ Association for their hard work!

They did a fantastic job tidying up Sandfield Road, Staunton Road, Headley Way and Woodlands Road today - thanks everyone!

Please click here to see the County Council’s plans to pedestrianise the centre of Oxford

I went to a briefing on this tonight. I get the impression that very few people have been consulted. This is

a vision, not a solid immutable blueprint (Keith Mitchell).

Their view of the City Centre is that there are too many buses, dirty
cluttered streets, and poor quality pavement materials

The exemplar of good practice they want to aspire to is the Castle redevelopment

They are aiming for:

• more pedestrianisation
• low-emission buses (trams are too expensive)
• optical registration of bus routes
• significantly reduced no. buses but the same no. passenger journeys
• smartcard bus ticketing
• cleaner streets
• better pavement materials

The buses from East Oxford via Cowley Road/Iffley Road/St
Clements/Marston Road will turn round at the Plain - that’s the
current thinking. But they will think about extending the route for
through buses from further out if this is not possible. From St
Clements? From Gipsy Lane? From London Road roundabout? From Park
and Ride? That’s all up for debate and the bus companies will have a
big role in sorting this out. But at present they are assuming the
buses from our end of Oxford will turn round at the Plain and will not
diminish in frequency. People will then change onto buses that run through the City Centre

Buses from North Oxford will turn round at a strange new turning place by
the Ashmolean short of the Martyrs’ Memorial, councillors are concerned
this will upset St John’s College

Mr Hugh-Jones (Env/Econ) mentioned talks starting about running a bus service
between Thornhill, the hospitals, and Peartree.

A bendy bus had been superimposed on the presentation slides, it resembled an airport bus for people to stand in, with very few seats. “What about the elderly? What about
people with luggage?” we exclaimed! But the type of bus has not been decided upon yet

Ian Hudspeth and Keith Mitchell seem to think the scheme frees up the options for London buses to depart from other areas of the City. I pointed out that 25%
Tube passengers get on the coach between the Plain and London Road
roundabout, that many Headington residents have bought houses here in
order to access the London buses, and that proprietors of bed and
breakfast accommodation and hotels in Headington had acquired premises
precisely because they were on the main route to London.
I pointed out that the bus companies would be hard to persuade that
their established routes should be changed as they stood to lose a lot
of money, at least initially.

They want to pedestrianise Broad Street and pave it with high quality
materials funded from developer money! (from where? Where can they
develop Broad St.?)

They have no budget for this at present. They are interested in
getting money from the Transport Innovations Fund and they think
they’d be successful, although this would not be enough

Bus stops would move from Queen St to Castle St. and New Road

They will do an audit of cycle racks, then decide where to site new
ones. Lots of concern about the need for cycle routes - The Plain may
become a death trap for cyclists? They would like a rent-a bike scheme as in Barcelona

Phase 1 is putting a non-stopping bus lane down the middle of Queen St
with pedestrian walkways either side.

The plans for consultation are not yet firmed up, but residents will be able to give their views via the County Council. There’s a lot to sort out before plans get as far as that!

York Road residents showed us the poor pavement surfaces in their road when David, Roz and I held our site inspection there recently.  We have good news to report!  We asked the City Council engineering team to assess the problem for us and they confirmed today that improvement work will be done on the stretch of pavement from nos. 4-34 later on this week.  Together we have made it happen - thanks to all residents for your feedback!