It was with little surprise that we report this week that the county council plans to push ahead with its two-stage pedestrianisation of Queen Street.

As we reported last month, Oxford Bus Company and Stagecoach said that if the county council were to work with them to achieve a quality bus partnership first, then the full pedestrianisation of Queen Street could be achieved two years earlier than planned.

The companies felt that the county’s proposals would put too much pressure on the new and existing stops that will replace those in Queen Street.

We hope those fears prove unfounded and, in the meantime, we hope that the changes, which will start this summer, will succeed in improving the city centre, hopefully for both pedestrians and road users. At least a clear timetable has been drawn up for the planned changes.

In tandem with the county’s proposals, we hope that the proposed quality bus partnership with the main operators will soon start to show some benefits for bus passengers, particularly in the areas of joint timetabling and, perhaps more importantly, joint ticketing.

A clear timetable for those proposals would also be very welcome.