Visions of Oxford

4:17pm Thursday 14th August 2008

Not much needs to be said about the Policy Exchange think tank's proposal that development should be allowed to run riot around Oxford to create a metropolitan area the size of the West Midlands.

One need only reference the time of year that the authors chose to release it - the silly season. At a busier time of the year, it would probably have gone largely unnoticed.

Let us simply say that the Policy Exchange plan would put an end to all that we know and love about not only Oxford, but the whole of Oxfordshire. Indeed, it would destroy the character of a large part of the South East.

More to the point, it will never happen.

Of more interest to us is the vision of Oxford expounded this week by the leader of the county council Keith Mitchell.

Mr Mitchell, famed for being wed to his car, has this week championed the cause of the pedestrian in the centre of Oxford.

The county council, it appears, has finally accepted that the changes introduced as part of the Oxford Transport Strategy have done little to make life better for those on foot - and that it is now time to make the pedestrian the number one priority.

Mr Mitchell has promised a review, and one that will deliver results within months.

That is a bold promise, particularly given that we have been awaiting many of the improvements promised as part of OTS for a decade or more.

Is Mr Mitchell really going to deliver us a bus-free Queen Street in the near future? Can we expect to see the improvements in Broad Street that we have dreamed of for so long?

And can the High be wrenched out of the hands of the bus companies and returned to its status as one of Europe's great streets?

These are all achievable, but they could require major investment and a very firm hand from County Hall.

There are many competing interests - not least among the bus companies themselves - and it will take something much more than a talking shop to force real change.