New Thames bridge plan for Oxford

The cash comes from the Oxfordshire Growth Deal, with £6m for the bridge behind Oxford Ice Rink and another £1 million to improve cycle routes across the city.

Oxford City Council’s cabinet agreed to take responsibility of the funds on Wednesday, but the full council will need to vote before it can be spent.

A council report said the schemes are intended to ‘help fast-track delivery of homes and employment space’ in west Oxford and improve links to the city centre.

The £1 million would be spent on improvements for cyclists at Cuckoo Lane, Marsh Lane, Marston Road and Boundary Brook.

Costs and details of the new cycling schemes would be drawn up if the council approves the £1 million.

The planned bridge over the Thames is now at the ‘feasibility’ stage, and a study in the next year could work out where it can be built and how long it would take.

The council will be asked to spend £300,000 from existing funds on a feasibility study to work out these details.

In a masterplan for Oxpens written in 2013, the council put the bridge to the east of an existing railway bridge which crosses the Thames near the ice rink.

A drawing of the planned cycle and pedestrian bridge from the 2013 Oxpens Masterplan. Picture: Oxford City Council/ David Lock Associates.

A map from the masterplan showed bridge over the river for use by cyclists and walkers, but there is no mention of the bridge’s design in the latest council documents.

A bridge linking Oxpens, opposite the Westgate, with Osney Mead would be an important part of plans to redevelop the industrial estate.

In 2016, Oxford University revealed it had been buying up land on the estate and planned to demolish it and build a new science park dubbed the Oxford ‘innovation quarter’.

The Osney Mead industrial estate is home to the Oxford Mail, as well as games developer Rebellion, Jericho Coffee Traders, Oxford University’s library services and several wholesalers.

In November, the city council noted that a senior council officer had signed a contract with Highways England for £6.088m to be spent on infrastructure for the new innovation quarter.

An overview of how new buildings at Osney Mead would look. Picture: Shepheard Epstein Hunter

In 2016, it was reported that work on the 20-year project could have begun as early as 2019, but no planning applications have yet been submitted.

Science labs, tree-lined avenues and more than 600 homes for graduates and staff are planned for the Osney Mead site.

The Growth Deal funding has been in the pipeline since 2017, with a total of £215 million available for different projects across Oxfordshire.

The Oxfordshire Growth Deal is being used to support the ambition of building 100,000 new homes across the county between 2011 and 2031.