BAYS in Frideswide Square will be “tweaked” after bus companies complained they were too small to safely accommodate vehicles.

Kerbs at the £5.8m square will be modified to prevent buses from mounting the pavement, Oxfordshire County Council has revealed.

The decision was welcomed by Oxford Bus Company managing director Phil Southall who said: “We are pleased the county council has listened to us and that our concerns have been taken seriously.”

Deputy director of environment and economy at the county council, Mark Kemp, said: “We spoke to the bus companies on site and it soon became obvious the change they’d like to see is very small scale – so small in fact it is the type of thing that is often picked up as part of ‘snagging’ work at the end of a major scheme, as opposed to being something that can be categorised as a ‘redesign’.

“We are not worried about the safety of the bus bays and will be putting up ramps before changes are made to make sure everything is running smoothly.”

Mr Kemp insisted the bays were big enough for two buses and that the tightness of the spaces was an intentional move by the project’s designers. He said: “One thing that must be stressed is the bus bays are big enough for two buses.

“The design of the road is intentionally tight so that vehicles will travel at slow and constant speeds.

“ The issue raised by bus firms is not about the size of bus bays, it is about the manoeuvrability in and out.

“Any design needs to be road-tested. In particular, innovative designs such as that at Frideswide are likely to require tweaks.”

Bus Users chairman Hugh Jaeger said he believed such tweaks would not have been necessary had the county council “designed the project properly in the first place”.

He said: “ It shouldn’t be too hard to design something that’s big enough to fit two buses end to end without having to shave down the kerb to fit them in.”

“They need to tell us how much this is going to cost and how much longer it’s going to take.”

The council’s cabinet member for environment, David Nimmo Smith, said changes to a multi-million pound project were not unusual and were just “part and parcel of getting things right”.

He said: “We’ve been happy to work with bus companies, and with this minor adjustment they are content and looking forward to starting running services from the Frideswide bus bays very soon.”

The council says the project is still on track for completion in mid-December.