The county council must do a better job of organising the makeover of The Plain roundabout.

Just days after the Conservative Cabinet refused to halt one of its major road works to ease our traffic chaos, the county council suddenly decided to put back The Plain’s start date.

After writing to residents and businesses with a start date of October 20, the county council had to write again with news of the postponement. All of this costs unnecessary money and causes confusion.

The county council did not engage local city councillors, or even the contractor before it announced the postponement to the press.

With The Plain lying in my council ward and the city council part-funding the makeover, the county council should have directly contacted me about their changed plans, so I could keep residents informed.

The county council has since accepted that it fumbled its communications.

However, residents left in the dark about developments, then suddenly told of the u-turn, say they can’t trust the Conservative political leadership to redevelop their roundabout without further mismanagement.

I’m not surprised. The county council hasn’t just fumbled its communications.

The Conservative leadership should have sought to limit disruption as much as possible when planning the road works.

Instead, it planned for several schemes relatively close to each other to take place at the same time.

I remain concerned about The Plain and hope the county council acts quickly to gain confidence in its ability to make sensible planning decisions and keep local councillors and residents informed.

Cllr Tom Hayes

(Labour) City Councillor for St Clement’s

Today’s letters

 

  • Do you want alerts delivered straight to your phone via our WhatsApp service? Text NEWS or SPORT or NEWS AND SPORT, depending on which services you want, and your full name to 07767 417704. Save our number into your phone’s contacts as Oxford Mail WhatsApp and ensure you have WhatsApp installed.