After a week of gridlock in East Oxford, the city's leader asks the county to review its roadworks and consider pausing traffic filters when closures coincide.
Oxford City Council has asked the county council to review a week of congestion that it says gridlocked East Oxford, and to consider switching off traffic restrictions when major roadworks coincide with them. The statement from Councillor Susan Brown, the city council’s leader, was published on Friday 9 October.
She said the week’s congestion had “caused real frustration for residents, businesses and bus passengers across the city, and particularly in East Oxford following the closure of Between Towns Road”.
Between Towns Road is the B4495 through the centre of Cowley. Oxfordshire County Council’s own list of resurfacing schemes records it as day and night work on Tuesday 6 and Wednesday 7 October. The same list has Horspath Driftway, a mile to the north-east, down for night closures from 26 September to 16 October.
What the city council is asking for
The county council is the highway authority. It runs the roadworks programme and the traffic filters, and it is the body the city’s statement addresses. The statement asks it to:
- review the week’s disruption “to better coordinate their roadworks”
- “consider a more flexible approach in future taking greater account of school holidays and night work”
- “use all available tools at their disposal to reduce congestion and minimise the impact on local communities”
Then comes the request that matters most. “When major roadworks, accidents or other events put extraordinary pressure on the network, we expect the County Council to at least consider temporarily suspending relevant restrictions where that would help traffic flow and keep buses moving.”
Brown wrote that the county “has previously said that ANPR-enforced traffic restrictions can be used flexibly during exceptional circumstances”. She conceded the limits of the idea in the same breath: “It may be that this will not make a huge difference, and there are downsides for cyclists using these safer routes.”
She also said who is doing the digging. “A lot of the current work is being carried out by Oxfordshire County Council not utility companies.” The county’s resurfacing list bears that out for Between Towns Road and Horspath Driftway, which are both county schemes. The James Wolfe Road closure in Cowley, by contrast, is Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks’ cable work, and the Queen Street closure in the city centre is listed only by Oxford Bus Company.
What was shut at the same time
The week’s closures landed on top of each other. In and around East Oxford:
- The traffic filters have been live since Monday 28 September. Four run 7am to 7pm every day, at Hythe Bridge Street, St Clements, St Cross Road and Thames Street. The Hollow Way filter in Cowley and the Marston Ferry Road filter operate 7am to 9am and 3pm to 6pm, Monday to Saturday. The county council made the experimental order on 24 August.
- Queen Street has been closed since 7.30am on 28 September and stays shut until 5.30pm on 26 October, with ten bus routes diverted through Speedwell Street, according to Oxford Bus Company.
- Horspath Driftway is closed every night, 8pm to 6am, for resurfacing along its whole length, with its junction on the Eastern Bypass shut. The county’s order runs to 17 October.
- James Wolfe Road and Kennedy Close in Cowley have been closed since 14 September for cable work, to 23 October.
- Between Towns Road itself, on 6 and 7 October.
- The Oxford Half closed roads across central and north Oxford on Sunday 11 October, with six bus routes diverted from 7.30am to 3pm.
Our roadworks page carries the full table of what is closed this week, including the A34 night closures at Hinksey and Marcham that run from Monday 12 to the morning of Friday 16 October.
What the county has said
Nothing, so far. On Sunday morning the county council’s newsroom carried no response to the city’s statement. Its most recent releases, all on 9 October, were about active travel proposals in Charlbury, the future of two care homes, and an illicit tobacco prosecution in Oxford.
The county’s feedback survey on the filter trial stays open until 28 March 2027. Because the filters run under an experimental order, anyone may also object to them being made permanent within six months of 28 September. We will add the county council’s response when it publishes one.
What it means for you
- Between Towns Road is open. The county’s published list shows no further dates for it. We could not confirm, from any first-party source, reports of more work there later in October, so treat those as unverified.
- The filters are not suspended. A car without a permit that passes one in its operating hours gets a warning notice the first time during the first six months of the trial, and a £70 penalty after that, halved to £35 if paid within 21 days. Our permits explainer covers who is exempt and how the 100 day passes work.
- This week the pressure points are Queen Street, Horspath Driftway and the A34. Queen Street’s diversions mean the X2, X15 and X40 cannot serve the St Aldates stops until 26 October. The September bus changes still apply underneath them.
- If you want the filters changed, the survey is the route. Paper copies are at County Hall and Oxfordshire libraries; the online form is on the county’s Let’s Talk site.
- Parking in the city centre is unaffected by the filters, and our parking page has the car park and park and ride prices, including the £3 Park + Bus ticket.
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