I WAS uber excited when I read about £3.3m from the Government’s cycle city ambition grants being awarded to Oxford.

I couldn’t sit still when I read it was to be spent on a long discussed pedestrian and cycle bridge connecting the Abingdon Road and Iffley Road.

Imagine my disappointment when I eventually realised the papers had it all wrong rather than spending the cycle grant on a much needed piece of cycling infrastructure, Oxfordshire County Council had decided it would be used to build another bridge 150 metres from an existing crossing in the Oxpens area.

The only reason I can see for this additional bridge is because it will look pretty in the new Oxpens development.

So it’s back to using Donnington Bridge and a massive detour if when cycling or walking you want to cross the Thames in a civilised manner rather than take your chances at The Plain roundabout.

If, like me, you don’t believe the hype and promises of rejuvenation in Oxford until you see it, you will have been forgiven for dismissing the long-awaited development of Oxpens “West End” as pie in the sky.

But a little searching on the internet will produce fancy documents promising all sorts of lovely ideas for an area which is often little more than a flooded field and a car park.

Part of the consultation draft from May 2013 discusses a nice new bridge for cyclists and pedestrians to access the new West End from the other side of the river, this is what the money awarded to OCC at the beginning of March 2014 for “cycling” is being spent on. Essentially it is being directed to a development that should have had its funding sorted out already, in my opinion.

The only way to understand the rationale behind spending money on another bridge where there are already adequate crossings is to try and comprehend where cyclists need to cross the river to access the city or the station and how Sustrans route 5 will be rerouted up Old Greyfriars Street.

But that’s not even where they are putting the cycle bridge. It’s near where the ice rink stands, this bridge will link the new development to a nature reserve, I am not sure the primary beneficiaries will be cyclists as the money pot suggests, it will in fact be the new residents of Oxpens who need to exercise their dogs.

The Government’s guidance in applying for the grant clearly takes cycling and walking to its heart and predominates cycling over other forms of transport. Why then isn’t it being steered towards more pressing linkage of our Oxford cycle network?

Stick a new bridge where Oxford cyclists have said it’s needed, just below the University Boathouses, and you link two sides of town adequately for cyclists and even more successfully for pedestrians, therefore more people will be inclined to leave the car at home, which surely is a benefit to all.