Ten years after the first funding was secured, the final* plans for the A40 from Witney to Eynsham have been released.
One of Oxfordshire’s most congested roads is set to get even busier. The Salt Cross ‘garden village’, new houses in west Eynsham, and developments in east and north Witney – totalling over 5,000 homes – will tip more cars onto a road where queues are already the order of the day.
A menu of bus lanes and road widening was lined up to address this – but as we reported in October, construction inflation and an over-optimistic initial design led to the original proposals being scaled back. The plans no longer include a dual carriageway from Witney to Eynsham, for example. But what do they include? As consultation opens on the new plans, we take a look at the future A40, mile-by-mile.
Witney
At the eastern edge of Witney, the Shores Green junction is getting new slip roads so that traffic from Witney can turn west (towards Burford/Cheltenham) as well as east (towards Oxford). This will allow residents of east Witney to drive around town without being funneled through the narrow Bridge Street. These changes are being funded separately, at a cost of £25m, and aren’t part of the main A40 project. The slip roads will open in 2026.
Witney to Eynsham
This section of single carriageway road was originally proposed for dualling. That has now been dropped entirely from the programme due to funding pressures, and no changes are proposed.
This stretch is reasonably free-flowing, without the heavy congestion that affects the road closer to Oxford. However, the minor road junction at the hamlet of Barnard Gate, halfway along, remains a notorious trouble spot. The original plans would have seen a roundabout and farm access bridge built here.
The roadside cycleway also remains sub-par. Currently little more than a narrow footpath, it would have been rebuilt and widened as part of the original plans. OCC still hopes to bring forward a cycleway upgrade in the long term.
Eynsham and Salt Cross
Here’s where the JCBs start to earn their keep.
Much to the delight of tabloid journalists everywhere, the new Eynsham Park & Ride will finally get its connection to the A40. Oxfordshire County Council hopes that commuters from Witney and Carterton will park up at the new P&R and catch the bus for their journey into Oxford, reducing pressure on the A40 beyond here. Heading east from here past Eynsham, a bus lane will be constructed in each direction.
A shared-use cycleway/footway will be provided on each side of the road. No fewer than four pedestrian/cycle crossings will be provided, so Eynsham residents can access the Park & Ride easily on foot or bike.
The cycleway on the north side won’t continue past Eynsham, so cyclists between Witney and Oxford will need to use one of the crossings to continue their journey on the south side. But cycleway provision here is perhaps best treated as a work in progress. The 2,200 new homes at Salt Cross, on the north side of the road, will merit a more permanent crossing – an underpass or bridge. The poor experience of Barton Park residents, marooned on the ‘wrong side’ of the A40 in Oxford with just a light-controlled crossing, is a compelling argument for getting this one right.
Eynsham to Cassington
For the next mile onwards to the notorious traffic lights at Cassington, the bus lanes will continue on each side of the road. By enabling buses to speed past the inevitable traffic jam, journey times towards Oxford could be significantly cut at busy times.
The cycleway remains on the south side here, though there’ll be a short north side cycleway for access to Cassington.
In the future, OCC hopes to extend the bus lanes half a mile further east to the junction with the tiny Horsemere Lane, and improve the cycleway here too. Funding isn’t yet available for that, but OCC is putting in a planning application in the expectation funds might become available – a deliberately optimistic move when such applications usually expire after five years.
Cassington to Duke’s Cut
For now, there are no changes for the two miles from Cassington to the narrow bridge over the Duke’s Cut canal. OCC ultimately wants to provide an Oxford-bound bus lane throughout this whole section, but again, there’s no funding for that yet. This stretch has no junctions other than a quarry access on the old railway line, but sheer weight of traffic means that progress is often slow nonetheless.
Salt Cross to Oxford North is just 3.5 miles, the sweet spot for bicycle commuting. The existing path on this section is frequently obstructed by overgrowth and parked cars. A cycleway upgrade will need to be a high priority if many of the 3,200 residents of Salt Cross and West Eynsham are to cycle to work.
Duke’s Cut and Oxford North
Here, the revised scheme is a significant improvement over the original. Originally, the bus lane would have stopped before the narrow Duke’s Cut canal bridge. As rush-hour traffic is often queuing at this point, this was widely viewed as a flaw in the original plans.
Now, the bus lane will resume just before the bridge, and run for 800m to the Oxford North development – where it will link into the already constructed bus lane. In total, buses will enjoy a 1200m (mostly) car-free run up to the traffic-light controlled Wolvercote Roundabout. As at Cassington, this should remove one of the major causes of delay to buses.
The cycleway on the south side of the road will be upgraded, again linking into the wide path at Oxford North. (Side-road crossings here have been rebuilt after they were originally constructed with a near-impossible dogleg on a narrow central island.)
The original plans included a short connecting path from the A40 cycleway to the Duke’s Cut canal towpath, which would have enabled cyclists to drop down onto the traffic-free path for an unhurried canalside ride into Oxford. This is no longer in the scheme, but the plans say “A shared-use route between the south side of the A40 and the canal towpath is under investigation.”
Will it work?
The original, expansive scheme was all things to all vehicles. Long bus lanes; a dual carriageway for private motorists; widened paths for cyclists.
The revised design is a textbook case of “value engineering”. Oxfordshire County Council has single-mindedly focused the budget on bus delays. At Eynsham, Cassington, and Duke’s Cut, the design is intended to cut the 14 minutes that buses typically spend queuing. Yes, there are improvements for cyclists too, withsections of widened path and new zebra crossings. But most of the £126m is going to the bus lanes that OCC hopes will speed the residents of Salt Cross, Eynsham and Witney into Oxford by 2028.
Budget constraints mean the plans are still not everything OCC wants them to be. There will be no bus lane, as yet, between Cassington and Duke’s Cut. The traffic signals will not let buses out first (“pre-signals”). Still, it is no secret that there are those in Oxfordshire’s Liberal Democrat and Green leadership who are happier with this scheme “prioritising improvements for sustainable travel” than one that they worried would just encourage more car journeys.
There remains the dream of a Witney–Oxford railway, championed by new Witney MP Charlie Maynard, which could carry 1000 passengers every hour without breaking sweat. OCC funded a study that concluded such a line would run profitably, but would cost up to £900m to build. Far beyond the budget of Oxfordshire County Council or the housing developers in West Oxfordshire, its chances rest on a Government whose intentions for the nationalised railway remain opaque.
Until that time, will the people of West Oxfordshire take to interurban buses – electric, whisked past jams in their own dedicated lane, and served by a sparkling new Park & Ride?
*contents may settle in (Science) Transit
Appendix: Winter 2024 consultation
Oxfordshire County Council has opened a consultation on the plans which merits some explanation. This is “the public engagement stage”, but not the formal request for comments on the planning application itself: that will come in spring 2025. Both the consultation and the planning application are for the full scheme including the bus lane from Cassington to Duke’s Cut and additional cycleways, even though there isn’t yet funding for those.
