RESIDENTS say they are being “railroaded” by plans to close a city road in January for 10 months.

Network Rail announced last Thursday it will demolish and replace the railway bridge in First Turn, Wolvercote, as part of upgrades to the line between Oxford and Bicester.

A diversion would go via Wolvercote Roundabout, but residents said it will cut off elderly people and schoolchildren from getting to Woodstock Road.

Godstow Road novelist Linda Proud Smith, 65, said: “Everyone is very upset and worried about it.

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“People already queue along Godstow Road to get out of Upper Wolvercote at the roundabout, so when you add extra traffic to that it does not bear thinking about.

“Most people always leave Wolvercote through First Turn. That is a big concern.

“But people east of the closure are also going to be cut off from the [primary] school, the church and the post office and will have to go via the roundabout.

“We just feel like we are all being railroaded by Network Rail about this.”

Network Rail has said the work will take place from January 25 to November 22, closing the road in both direction to pedestrians and cars.

Both Oxford City Council and Oxfordshire County Council are unlikely to be able to intervene, because they cannot overrule the order made under the Transport and Works Act 1992 enabling the bridge work.

Fears were also raised this week that the works are set to coincide with Oxfordshire County Council’s planned £9m overhaul of the Wolvercote and Cutteslowe roundabouts.

That work is slated to run from June to January 2016, meaning there will be a five-month overlap with the roundabout works.

County council cabinet member for transport David Nimmo Smith said: “This track work is a national concern, so I do accept we may not be able to do everything we wanted to do but we will try to stick to our timetable.

“I am in discussions with officers, so I can’t rule anything out. We do not want the whole city to grind to a complete halt - that is in no one’s interest.”

Father-of-three Naresh Kotak, who manages First Turn Stores, said the road closure could cost his business as much as £3,000 each week.

The 60-year-old said: “We will lose about 40 per cent of our business because of this, because we get a lot of our customers through Woodstock Road.

“With the diversion in place it will not be easy for them to get here. We also have to have lorry deliveries and do not currently know how that will be affected.

“We have not heard anything from Network Rail, Chiltern Railways, or the county council, but were shocked when we heard the news.”

Emma Gascoigne, a spokeswoman for the Bicester to Oxford [Railway] Collaboration said: “This work was consulted on by Chiltern Railways in 2009 through a public inquiry with powers to proceed granted through the Transport and Works Act in 2013.

“The replacement of First Turn bridge is an essential part of the line upgrade between Bicester and Oxford.

“We apologise to those affected during construction and we will endeavour to keep disruption to a minimum.”

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