A plea for cash to carry out safety work on water meadows after a girl drowned has been rejected by district councillors.

In May Naomi Simms, aged ten, died after falling in the River Glyme near her home in Bear Close, Woodstock, while playing with a friend in the town's water meadows. She was sucked into the fast-flowing waters of a sluice and trapped against a drain.

The water meadows are owned by Woodstock Town Council. Experts from the Environment Agency have drawn up a list of recommendations to improve safety and access for pedestrians.

These include replacing the sluice mechanism and bridging the headworks and overflow channels at a total cost of £25,600. Work on the sluice is already under way and the cost of £3,600 will be met by town councillors. They have asked West Oxfordshire District Council for a grant of £10,000 towards the cost of the rest of the work as well as approaching the Environment Agency and the Duke of Marlborough.

Town clerk Marian Moxon said: "This expenditure is totally unexpected and we hope that the district council can assist by means of a grant."

The district council's director of finance Linda Muir told members of the policy committee there were legal powers to make such a grant but councillors had to decide if it was in the best interests of the tax payer.

Councillors declined to give financial assistance.

Mrs Moxon said: "I am disappointed but I do understand their position. We shall be looking at alternative means of raising money and will go ahead with a footbridge, if not one for vehicles, over the headworks and overflow."

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