AN official role representing the interests of cyclists in Oxfordshire will be abolished after the last title holder resigned her post.

The county’s cycling champion is set to be axed after councillors voted in favour of replacing it with a group of elected members to carry out a similar role.

This group will be known as a Cabinet Advisory Group (CAG) for cycling and walking, with councillors from different parties and areas of the county sitting in it to ‘inform strategic decision-making making on cycling infrastructure’ and ‘ensure that the needs of each locality and its cyclists and pedestrians are better served’.

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Replacing the role with a group of advisors was proposed by Arash Fatemian, a Conservative county councillor who was once held the position of cycling champion.

In his motion proposing the change, Mr Fatemian said different areas of Oxfordshire needed different kinds of cycling infrastructure, and a one-size fits all approach was not working.

The motion said: “As with other modes of transport, diversity of approach is needed.

“What works in cycling and walking for Banbury and its hilly surrounds will not necessarily suit the comparatively flatter and better-established commuter routes between Oxford, Abingdon and the Culham science park.

“A more consultative approach to policymaking is therefore needed to ensure more collaborative and effective policymaking.”

The council’s last cycling champion, Suzanne Bartington, resigned from her role in October due to frustration that new schemes to support people riding bikes were not being delivered as planned.

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In a motion passed by the council in November 2018, she had sought to speed up plans for a 'strategic active travel network' of cycling and walking paths across Oxfordshire, find national funding for this, and to make sure council planning chiefs thought about cycling schemes when approving new housing estates.

The opposition Labour group’s spokesman on highways issues, Damian Haywood, tried to amend the plans and argue that the cycling champion should be kept alongside the new CAG.

He also asked for the 2018 plans to be implemented fully.

But a majority of councillors did not support his proposals, and the role was scrapped in favour of the new group of advisors.

Some of the plans laid out by Dr Bartington in 2018 have been carried forward: including a series of Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plans, which set out roads across Oxfordshire's towns where cycle lanes should be added.

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