A PETITION asking for plans for The Plain roundabout to be redrawn has been delivered to Oxfordshire County Council.

The council has put together proposals to make the roundabout safer for cyclists. It is planning to spend more than £960,000 on the scheme, with work scheduled to start in the autumn.

But Graham Smith, who represents the South East on the Cyclists Touring Club Council, said a number of cycle-friendly aspects of the design have been removed. He said: “We petitioned the council to reconsider, urgently, the current design for The Plain and the design approach. With four out of five possibly pro-cycling elements removed, only the costly stone footway is left. The county’s concept is destroyed. This wasteful, mostly irrelevant, design must be revisited, urgently.”

He said more segregated space for cyclists was needed and changes should be made to the road around the roundabout.

County councillor David Nimmo Smith, the cabinet member for transport, said: “Even if we were able to make all the changes suggested, other road users would certainly lose out. Huge numbers of bus passengers would face considerable delays if we made the traffic go even slower than we are already proposing.”

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