Jemima Hunt, city councillor for St Clements, writes for Cyclox about LTNs in east Oxford and how the traffic system is being amended.

IN Oxford playwright Karim Khan’s award-winning play, Brown Boys Swim, Kash and Mohsen, two local schoolboys, are waiting at the bus stop.

Mohsen: They literally tore down the bollard.

Kash: Where’s that?

Mohsen: By Cowley Road. Princes Street, and this cyclist comes up to them – ‘put that back’.

Cue laughter from an audience familiar with Oxford’s bollards and how they became a national story. For months last year, stories of East Oxford’s plastic bollards proving a target for vandals and thieves were seized upon by the UK’s media, from a Panorama documentary, Road Wars, to the The Times, Low Traffic, Big Bust-Ups. The plastic bollards were finally replaced with lockable wooden bollards in March 2023.

Oxford Mail: East Oxford’s bollard-protected Low Traffic Neighbourhoods were introduced as part of the government’s Emergency Active Travel 2020 Funding.

According to the Department of Transport, ‘LTNs work by minimising through-traffic. A successful LTN makes walking and cycling more convenient than using a car for short trips.’ The LTN schemes, rolled out by Oxfordshire County Council as part of an 18-month trial, were rigorously consulted on prior to their implementation.

The emergency services, key consultees, would be given keys to the lockable bollards, residents were told, along with the refuse collections.

The arrival of wooden bollards has transformed East Oxford. Today children on bikes can be seen in their hundreds making their way up Magdalen, Southfield and Divinity Road to get to school, no longer at threat from the thousands of vehicles that, prior to the LTNs, used East Oxford’s narrow residential roads as cut-throughs.

Oxford Mail: "The reduction in traffic since our LTN went in has had a very positive impact on Pegasus,’ says the Magdalen Road children’s theatre director, Georgia Bradley. 

"At our busiest times, evenings and weekends we have seen a significant rise in audiences arriving either on foot or by bike which is preferable to vehicles clogging up the road outside the venue creating a hazard. It has also led to a spike in families coming to the area to enjoy the local coffee shops and restaurants along with the theatre itself."

Local mother of two, Emma, not a fan of ‘the concept of LTNs,’ changed her mind when the wooden bollards arrived. "I felt safe cycling with my children to school and nursery."

Her five-year-old daughter who has since learned to cycle will, however, be put back in the car to get to school, less than two miles away, from January 2024.

On October 17, Oxfordshire County Council’s cabinet made the decision to make the East Oxford LTNs permanent.

However, as part of alleviating Oxford’s traffic congestion caused by the Network Rail delays, residents have been told that the bollards on Magdalen and Divinity Road and James Street will be removed.

READ MORE: Six children hurt in crash after police chase

“To remove the LTNs wooden bollards and reopen Magdalen Road to traffic would pose a significant safety risk for children,” says Georgia Bradley, director of the Pegasus Theatre.

For residents of Divinity Road, the county council’s decision to reopen their community to emergency vehicles, taxis and a raft of other exemptions is a reminder of 1985’s council decision. In 1985 Divinity Road, like neighbouring East Avenue and Union Street, had a gate installed half-way down to prevent rat-running. Unfortunately, Divinity Road’s gate only lasted three months.

According to cycling campaigner Dame Sarah Storey: “I don’t think I’ve ever visited a school where all the kids don’t put their hands up when I ask, ‘who would like to cycle to school?’ It’s down to us adults to enable this.”

We are calling upon the county council to provide a contingency plan for children who use East Oxford’s roads to cycle to school safely, until the bollards are replaced.

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About the author 

Andy is the Trade and Tourism reporter for the Oxford Mail and you can sign up to his newsletters for free here. 

He joined the team more than 20 years ago and he covers community news across Oxfordshire.

His Trade and Tourism newsletter is released every Saturday morning. 

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