New town-centre layout for safer shopping

TOWN and Parish Councils across Oxfordshire have been feeding their ideas to County Councillors for changing road layouts for safer social distancing and to encourage more cycling and walking.

The Government has awarded Oxfordshire County Council a first tranche of  £2.5 million to help it comply with new, statutory Guidance for all local authorities, on managing their road and pavement space, in response to the Corona virus (COVID-19) outbreak.

Part of the statement reads: “The government therefore expects local authorities to make significant changes to their road layouts to give more space to cyclists and pedestrians. Such changes will help embed altered behaviours and demonstrate the positive effects of active travel. I’m pleased to see that many authorities have already begun to do this, and I urge you all to consider how you can begin to make use of the tools in this guidance, to make sure you do what is necessary to ensure transport networks support recovery from the COVID-19 emergency and provide a lasting legacy of greener, safer transport.”

At a meeting on Friday morning, Thame Town Councillors debated what could be done in Thame Town Centre quickly and easily, and what they thought would be acceptable to Oxfordshire County Council within its budget. Councillors debated several suggestions, including one to make the high street one-way from the Black Horse Pub, to the Rising Sun, providing more space for cyclists and pedestrians on either side. After some robust discussion, the majority of councillors voted for a less ambitious plan to restrict parking from the Pelican Crossing to the Zebra Crossing at the bottom of the high street, on the Boots side, to enable safer social distancing where queues for shops overlap reducing pavement space, and to apply to have the Oxford-bound bus stop moved from outside the Co-op to outside the Masonic Hall.

Before the town council hears from OCC what it decides to do in Thame, from today, specially printed stickers have started to appear on pavements in the town centre, every 2 metres reminding people to safe distance from one another, and Greyhound Walk will have a two-way system marked out, keeping to the left walking in one direction, and to the right in the other direction.

The new ‘take a ticket’ SmartQ App, to help businesses manage queues safely, has now been launched and can be downloaded. See LINK

You can read Grant Shapps’ full statement and Guidance HERE