For decades now the city of Oxford’s far-seeing transport policies have been held up as a beacon for others to follow. More than 35 years ago the city’s Balanced Transport Strategy took a far-sighted decision not to let the historic city centre be overrun by cars and new roads and subsequent strategies have enabled an excellent bus service to be developed to give the city first-class access without letting it be dominated by cars.

The County Council appears to have shunned the consultation process that it promised by pushing ahead with plans regardless in too short a timescale to enable the results of any ‘consultation’ to be digested. They have also turned their backs on alternative plans which would actually enable more of the city to be pedestrianised and yet still enable people to board and alight from buses in the heart of the shopping centre.

Currently bus use into the centre of Oxford is amongst the highest in the country: at least 44% of people in the city centre rely on the bus to get there, and outlying areas of the city enjoy high-frequency bus services, in some cases for 24 hours a day.

Under the County Council’s Transform Oxford scheme, bus stops will be removed next month from Queen Street, in the heart of the shopping area. ‘This move doesn’t actually get the buses out of this environmentally-sensitive area; it just stops people boarding and alighting from them where they want to be, which is surely the worst of all worlds’, said BUS USERS UK chairman Gavin Booth.

‘At a time when retail centres need all the help they can get, preventing people getting to the shops seems to make no sense at all’, he added.

Alternative stopping points are an inconvenient distance for able-bodied people, but will make Oxford effectively a no-go area for the people with mobility impairments for whom the bus companies in Oxford have invested a great deal by replacing their bus fleets with accessible buses well in advance of legislation that requires buses to be disabled-friendly. Department for Transport guidelines suggest that mobility-impaired people using a walking stick find it difficult to walk more than 50metres without a rest.

Councillors suggest there are too many buses in the city centre, but they have turned their back on offer from the two main competing bus companies to form a quality partnership with the council which would enable them to cooperate to use resources more effectively, reduce the number of buses and improve the service to passengers at the same time. ‘What the bus companies are proposing seems to achieve the council’s objectives in a way that actually benefits bus users, but the council seems to be blinkered and is carrying on regardless with a policy which seems destined to destroy decades of good work’, said Gavin Booth.

Next phases of the scheme could see bus users being forced off their buses within sight of city centre destinations to change on to a local shuttle service, inconveniencing users yet making little contribution to the city’s environment. ENDS