The transport planners at County Hall have come up with some attractive designs for Frideswide Square. Gone are the traffic lights and in their place come the roundabouts everyone has asked for.

The proposals include some significant public space and some shared space to calm the traffic and improve safety.

In an ideal world, we would urge the county council to get on and implement one or other of the two options it has drawn up.

Today, our financial world is far from ideal and, while the £5m cost would not have raised an eyebrow three years ago, it is now a significant and potentially fatal obstacle to the scheme.

Oxfordshire County Council says it will be preparing a bid to the Government’s £560m sustainable transport fund.

It is also pinning its hopes for a development at Oxford Station on the same sustainable transport fund.

At £560m nationally, this fund is going to be under severe pressure from many authorities wanting to develop their own schemes.

We see how the proposal to improve capacity at Oxford Station would fit the criteria of a sustainable transport fund, but it is less clear how the Frideswide Square scheme would fit in, particularly when faced with so much competition across the country.

Frideswide Square’s fate may well depend on contributions from developers in the so-called West End of Oxford. There is little sign of anything happening.

Christ Church recently promoted a scheme for land under its ownership in the Frideswide area but it has gone quiet since its development partner went into administration. In the current economic climate, the demands of funding improvements at Frideswide may make much development uneconomic in any event.

It all leads to the conclusion that it could be many years before there is any prospect of seeing either of these two options being fully implemented.

If that is the case, then the county council should have a plan B — a scheme that could be implemented at relatively little cost and which did not prejudice the future implementation of the ideal layout.

The basic road layout, including two or three roundabouts, cannot be that difficult to achieve.