Intensive consultation is being planned to make sure local people's views feature strongly in designs for a £1m road safety scheme in Cowley Road, Oxford.

The busy road is one of five in the country to be awarded Government cash by the Department of Transport to improve safety and traffic flow.

East Oxford Action is co-ordinating lengthy public consultation to try to capture the public's imagination over the scheme, and all areas of the design are still up for discussion.

The work will be carried out between January and September 2005 to improve safety, ease jams and smarten up the road, which is densely populated with multiple occupation housing, businesses, bars and nightclubs. Pedestrian and cycle safety issues will also be looked at.

It is unclear how much of the £1m grant will be spent on consultation, but most of it is being done on a voluntary basis.

Andy Davice, information officer at East Oxford Action, said: "Consultation can be expensive, but we are getting local people to do the work and we are not charging for the time we've spent.

"We are trying different ways of consulting people who would not come to big meetings or don't have the English language skills to fill out questionnaires. We want to be as inclusive as we can to get the biggest possible support of local residents.

"The Department of Transport has asked for a thorough participatory consultation process. They don't want the engineers to pull pre-prepared plans out. They want the people who have a stake in the Cowley Road to have a real input."

To gather ideas, suggestions and opinions from the community, shopkeepers and residents will be stopped in the street and interviewed about how they would like the £1m to be spent.

Craig Simmons, county councillor and city ward councillor for St Mary's, said: "We are trying to use it as an example of best practice in community consultation."