Oxfordshire County Council’s cabinet has given the go-ahead for the next phase of the HIF1 Didcot and surrounding areas major infrastructure project with a revised deal with Government. The project includes the new Didcot to Culham river crossing.
Approval at the county council’s cabinet meeting on 21st June follows its agreement in February to allocate additional funding to the project as part of its budget setting process. This funding will be combined with further investment from Homes England and the Oxfordshire LEP to deliver the project by mid-2026, following successful discussions.
There is more information on the Oxfordshire County Council’s website along with details about the project.
Hope the new river crossing goes ahead.
Sadly it has been the case that transport studies have found that new roads and bridges simply serve to attract more traffic into an area (this is why a while back it was chosen not to build a new bridge at Reading). The mention of “Homes England” also indicates that this new infrastructure may serve to encourage more house-building; it also appears that the Oxford to Cambridge Arc, by whatever name it is called, is far from forgotten by Government. While we may experience a temporary reduction in traffic, in my view the overall impact of the new bridge and road may simply serve as an excuse to encourage greater population density and building.
Which is why Clifton Hampden bridge needs to be closed, except for emergency vehicles and possibly local residents, enforced by ANPR.
With Google Maps drivers are routed onto the quickest route even if it’s past schools, houses etc. to save a minute. The route selected means for thousands of people in East Didcot it will be *marginally* quicker to go via Clifton Hampden. They will only be stopped if there is a physical barrier or fines.
It could be said that going from North Didcot to North Clifton Hampden is a marginally shorter distance coming through Long Wittenham. But navigation apps favour the quickest route in time, not the shortest in distance.
Bearing in mind that the new HIF1 route bypasses residential areas, traffic calming, and traffic lights at both Clifton Bridge and the main crossroads it is likely to be far quicker for northbound traffic to take the new route. And for any southbound traffic the Clifton bypass will direct them towards the HIF1 anyway.
Will there be traffic that still comes through Long Wittenham? Yes, of course. But any new route that can share the volume of traffic means that we’ll have less coming through the village, not more.
Second to this, at a recent Parish Council meeting the village was described as an “arterial route to cross the river” giving weight to the argument to get potholes fixed as a priority. But we can’t be both an arterial route (and therefore complain when problems take a long time to be fixed) and also complain that the volume of traffic is too much.
Are we a sleepy rural village that can put up with lumpy roads knowing it likely deters traffic? Or are we a necessary artery that needs to be repaired to aid the flow of traffic (i.e. encouraging it!)?
I think it’s easy to forget that, while we might not like traffic coming through ‘our’ village, as soon as we leave Wittenham we become the traffic in someone else’s village. At what point does Clifton Hampden decide that any traffic coming across the bridge is too much for ‘their’ village, put in a restriction of some kind and then we have to go the long way round!