Will there be a trial?

Oxfordshire County Council is trialling low-traffic neighbourhood schemes around Oxford, starting in Cowley in March 2021.

Given the urgent need to address the issues raised by the current Covid-19 crisis, as well as the ongoing issues caused by increasing traffic volumes, Oxfordshire County Council will start trialling low-traffic neighbourhood schemes around Oxford, starting in Cowley in March 2021. The temporary trials in Cowley have been informed by preliminary online consultations with the community and will be implemented using Experimental Traffic Regulation Orders (ETROs). ETROs are used to test how schemes work in practice and run alongside a full consultation while the temporary measures are in place. The decision to keep, modify or make a scheme permanent then follows the Council’s usual formal decision-making process.

Trials will enable the community to envisage how the public spaces created by access-only neighbourhoods could be further enhanced in the future.

It’s in everyone’s interest for us all to benefit from such schemes and Headington Liveable Streets would like to ensure this happens by encouraging people in the the community to respond to the upcoming consultations in due course.

Oxfordshire County Council continuously monitors traffic on Headington’s roads and will continue to do this during any trial period to assess the impact of the measures on traffic flows around the area. Any LTN measures introduced will be reviewed thoroughly as part of the consultation process in order to address any problems that arise for residents.