Oxfordshire County Council’s (OCC’s) agreement to lease the Triangle to the club was subject to a number of challenging conditions. On 12 October 2023 Cllr Dan Levy, the new OCC Cabinet Member for Finance who will be taking the final decision on the Triangle lease, wrote to Oxford United to confirm OCC’s expectations around how the club must deliver the commitments that it has made. Read Cllr Levy's letter (plus Annex A and Annex B) for more detail. Oxford United is going to have to provide some detailed information and we think they will find this challenging - so far the club has offered lots of commitments but there is still no convincing detail around how these will be achieved! We will follow developments and keep you posted.
Oxford United recently held exhibitions to show what its new stadium will look like. However, many residents were shocked to see that the footbridge over the Oxford Road has been forgotten. Instead OUFC propose:
- Closing the A4165 Oxford Road between Sainsburys and Oxford Parkway on 40 match days a year and an unspecified number of additional "special events" days (and don’t forget they are still saying they want the stadium in use 365 days a year).
- The closure will operate for one hour before matches and up to two hours afterwards.
- Traffic will be diverted via the already strained Peartree, Wolvercote and Cutteslowe roundabouts, along the A40, and back up to Oxford Parkway from the south (not great for a project which is supposed to be net zero).
- This will also affect buses and emergency vehicles and Five Mile Drive will suffer as a rat run.
This has understandably caused local dismay and anger because the Oxford Road is a key arterial route to and from Oxford and the hospitals, both for cars and buses. The road closures are also at odds with OCC’s conditions which include a requirement to improve accessibility “without disrupting vehicle movements on the Oxford Road”.
The police have already said that there should be no additional stress on strategic routes such as the A34 and A40. We can’t see how any of this is workable, but in any event, it will create massive disruption for people in Kidlington (and all points north) travelling towards Oxford, eg to Oxford hospitals or the City centre for shopping. The traffic diversions will also be regular and very inconvenient for local residents in Cutteslowe.
But it isn’t just FoSB who are raising concerns about the stadium proposal on the Triangle. Thames Valley Police (TVP) are clearly concerned about the ‘significant impact’ on them and the surrounding local area. In response to OUFC's application for a scoping opinion, TVP wrote a 4 page letter to Cherwell District Council. TVP raises concerns around “fans littering the Oxford Road”, “a negative impact on other users of the park and ride/train station”, and “….. there is a significant risk that residential areas all around the stadium will be littered with fans vehicles on match days”. TVP also raised many more concerns so please do download and read their letter in full.
FoSB believes that the Triangle is the wrong place for a stadium. Our campaign continues and we will update on next steps very soon.
Thank you for your ongoing support.