YOUR article about the Jericho Canalside project (Oxford Mail, September 28) reports that the developer is frustrated by ‘embedded positions’, specifically concerning the location of the new canal bridge at the bottom of Great Clarendon Street.
It is disappointing to read in the current parish magazine that the parochial church council is attempting to overturn this decision made in granting planning permission. The bridge will mean that commuting cyclists will be kept safely away from the new square, and this was supported by Oxfordshire County Council, Oxford City Council, the Canal and River Trust, and the Oxford Civic Society.
Against this, the PCC persists in campaigning for the bridge to lead from the new square, even though this will create a serious conflict of use with pedestrians and require cyclists to filter their way through Jericho’s side streets from Walton Street.
Its reasoning is that cyclists will prevent it becoming “blighted by drug-dealing, graffiti and vandalism, to the detriment of St Barnabas’ Church”. The reality is that the public will be attracted to this new waterside location with its working boatyard, the square will be flanked day and night by a community centre and nursery open for coffee, lunches, and community activities, and by a restaurant .
These arguments have been made repeatedly in print and still the PCC ignores them. It protests that it “has no wish to stall the project”, yet this is precisely what it is doing.
NIGEL HISCOCK
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford
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