I am writing regarding the ‘Black Friday’ shambles which developed on Friday, November 28. Local businesses, many of which are independently owned, rely on visitors to the town every day and yet, because of this chaos, we had radio and social media networks advising people to avoid the area altogether.

I have tremendous sympathy for those residents in the town who were affected by the gridlock and heard that visitors were even parking in residents’ driveways.

I noticed on Saturday that cones had been placed in all the areas affected by abandoned cars the previous day – too little, too late.

I dread to think what’s going to happen on Boxing Day.

I hope that, for example, the barrier leading into the car park from Bicester town station will be left open all day and traffic directed towards that exit too – this wasn’t happening efficiently on Friday evening when customers and staff were trying to leave the village.

The fact that the Village stayed open until midnight meant that customers were queuing from the outlet up to the M40 junction until after 1am.

Maybe if Bicester Village started charging for parking and that money was used for the benefit of local residents – and I’m not talking about more concrete sheep – it might go some way towards compensating the people of Bicester for this inconvenience.

Sarah Haydon
Bicester Bazaar Gift Shop

Today’s letters


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