Many of Oxfordshire’s towns suffer from the pressures of high levels of traffic, and we’ve been working to tackle these problems for many years. The Towns programme includes schemes that will address transport problems in the county’s towns in an integrated, efficient and cost-effective way.

Most towns in Oxfordshire experience congestion to some degree, and air quality in some town centres does not meet national targets. Road accidents, particularly those involving pedestrians and cyclists, are often concentrated in busy town centre streets. There are opportunities to improve the design and layout of streets in many of Oxfordshire’s town centres to enhance their appearance and limit the impact of traffic.

The Towns programme includes measures for addressing these issues, from simple schemes like new pedestrian crossings to larger, more complex schemes like the Abingdon town centre improvements or Cogges Link.

In the larger towns, we’ll often be developing schemes in more than one part of the town. To ensure all the schemes in a town work well together, we have developed or are working on comprehensive transport strategies for Abingdon, Banbury, Bicester, Didcot, Grove/Wantage, Henley and Witney. These strategies focus on tackling existing problems, but also enable us to anticipate and minimise the transport impacts of new development. To help do this, the County Council will continue to secure funding for transport improvements needed as a result of development. These improvements will then be implemented as part of the Towns programme.