Access to Headington start postponed

The next phase of Access to Headington, which had been due to start on 24 July, has been postponed until the new year.

Following continued discussions and alterations to the traffic management for Thames Water’s urgent sewer works on St Clements the county council has decided the overall disruption for traffic would be unacceptable.

County Councillor Yvonne Constance, cabinet member for Environment, said: “The Thames Water work must be done now as we could otherwise be in a situation where the sewers collapse and an emergency road closure is needed – that would be the worst possible situation.

“We have kept in constant contact with Thames Water and have worked closely with them to reduce the length of time their work will take as well as the impact on traffic.

“The traffic management for Thames Water’s work has been repeatedly discussed and refined and the impacts considered across a wider area. Our team have concluded that traffic re-directed from, or seeking to avoid, the St Clements work will hit the Access to Headington work resulting in congestion and pushing traffic from one set of roadworks to another.

“For that reason we have decided, as our work is more flexible, that we will move the Headley Way/Cherwell Drive phase to the new year."

The Access to Headington project team will be investigating other phases of the programme that could start this year that will not be as badly affected by redirected traffic from the Thames Water works.