PLANS to extend the Seacourt park-and-ride site in Oxford could help fight the city’s traffic problems.

Oxford City Council wants to increase capacity to alleviate traffic on Botley Road.

The site off Botley Road currently has 805 spaces and city council leader Bob Price said he wanted to extend the facility by as many as 300.

He said: “Seacourt would be a superb place if we could extend it. It will make it much easier for people to get in on the Botley Road, particularly with the Frideswide Square works due to start.

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“It is in the floodplain though and we will carry out tests to see whether it’s viable in terms of flood risk.

“It may come out positive, it may come out negative but it’s something we are looking at in the long term in response to demand.”

Commuters using Botley Road to get into Oxford have experienced severe traffic congestion in the last month because of roadworks.

These include temporary traffic lights at Worcester Street in the city centre and a contraflow system on the eastern by-pass for changes to the Kennington roundabout.

Mr Price also said plans would include an access road directly off the A34 which would miss out the traffic lights at West Way and provide easier access to the extended park-and-ride.

Thornhill park-and-ride was extended by 500 spaces and the new facility was opened in July 2013.

Doug Nevill, a design engineer who lives off Botley Road, said: “If you can get good access to a good park-and-ride service from the main roads into Oxford, like the A34, it will solve a lot of Oxford’s traffic congestion problems.

“Historically Oxford is not very well designed for cars, we need to start thinking along bigger lines. If you make the Seacourt park-and-ride service easier for people, people will use it.”

Oxford City Council said it was considering submitting an application but not before carrying out flood risk assessments.

A spokesman said: “The city council is currently carrying out feasibility studies and some tests around planning and flood risk to find out whether it would be possible to gain planning permission to extend the site.”

Susanna Pressel, Labour city councillor for Osney, which includes Botley Road said: “This park-and-ride car park is often full up, forcing people to drive into town.

“We obviously need to do all we can to reduce traffic in Botley Road, so this expansion is badly needed – as long as it won’t make homes in the area more likely to flood.

“I was hoping that it would be finished before the new Waitrose opens, but sadly this now looks unlikely.”

Once a planning application is submitted the Environment Agency will be consulted.

Barry Russell, Environment Agency operations manager, said: “It’s still in the planning consideration stage. From our point of view as long as the levels are not increased then the flood risk will not increase and any paving would have to be made from a permeable equivalent.”

Peter Rawcliffe, chairman of Oxford Flood Alliance, said: “It’s clearly an area that floods. If it were to increase the flood risk I don’t suppose it would be allowed. It would depend on the height, the devil will be in the detail.”

 

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