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Cogges Link Road: The final battle
3:02pm Tuesday 12th August 2008
PLANS for Witney's Cogges Link Road have been submitted, but campaigners have vowed to continue their long-running battle against the contentious £16.4m scheme.
The West Oxfordshire branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), which has been against the road since it was first mooted over 20 years ago, will object to the formal planning application, which is about to go out to public consultation. And Oxfordshire County Council, which has submitted its planning application to West Oxfordshire District Council, expects it may have to go through a public inquiry and compulsory purchase orders, delaying the opening of the road to 2012 at the earliest.
The council announced its plans this week.
As part of the public having their say, an exhibition on the scheme is being mounted in early October at Witney's Marlborough Hotel.
The times are October 8, 3pm to 9pm, October 10, 10am to 6pm, and October 11, 10am to 1pm. Documents, however, will be available online later this month.
The link road would connect the Sainsbury's roundabout in Witan Way to the main road at Oxford Hill, at the junction with Jubilee Way, and is designed to ease town centre traffic congestion around Bridge Street.
CPRE local chairman, Gillian Salway, said: "We have been against it all the time and will continue. Yes, this is the last battleground, the last possibility of stopping it.
"But we will need support. We know that there are businesses in Station Lane worried about the effects of traffic stacking up in that end of town before the Sainsbury's roundabout.
"And we will also be canvassing residents on the Cogges estate to object individually."
The CPRE has always objected to the impact the road will have on the floodplain and environment of the River Windrush.
But it also says that the road will not solve Witney's traffic circulation problems.
It believes an alternative scheme of a four-way junction at Shores Green on the A40 would be a cheaper option.
A year ago, the Gazette received one of the biggest responses to its own online poll, with 173 voting for the Cogges link and 165 for Shores Green.
The county's scheme is considerably revised from its earliest ideas in 1984. The road is longer, single carriageway with a 40mph limit and with a three-metre wide footpath and cycleway.
Ian Hudspeth, county cabinet member for transport, said: "I am very pleased that the planning application for Cogges Link has now been submitted.
"I hope local people will come along to the exhibition to view the details of the scheme as it will benefit Witney residents and businesses by reducing congestion."
Documents on the scheme will be available online from later this month on the county's webpage for the Witney Integrated Transport Strategy, oxfordshire.gov.uk/witneytransport
Your Say YourWitney
Chris, Witney says...
6:53pm Tue 12 Aug 08
As for the argument about the environment, the traffic Don refers to causes more than just misery to motorists, stationary and queueing cars create unnecessary air pollution, and easing this traffic would bring about a HUGE reduction in this which is good for the environment, wildlife and pedestrians!
robert, witney says...
7:48am Wed 13 Aug 08
caroline, Newlands says...
8:31am Wed 13 Aug 08
chris, witney says...
1:18pm Wed 13 Aug 08
quoteTo be honest any road that is built is going to just fill with traffic almost straight away so you wont see much difference anyway
Richard, Witney says...
10:09pm Wed 13 Aug 08
Jon, Cogges says...
10:18pm Wed 13 Aug 08
N J Wilcock, Cogges says...
11:47am Thu 14 Aug 08
Lidl's application was rejected because of the extra traffic it would inflict on the already congested A415/Station Lane/Thorney Leys junction - surely this would be even worse with impact of Cogges Bypass traffic?
Shores Green remains the better alternative - by a country mile!
chris, witney says...
1:15pm Thu 14 Aug 08
Richard wrote:45 mins to go 1.5 miles, so why dont you walk, it will only take at the most 30 minutes. That is one reason that the town is clogged up because quite a few use their cars to travel into town even if its 1.5 miles.
Chris wrote" go for the cheaper option" And what if that is ineffective? oh well we will have to fork out another 16 million for an alternative, you obviously don,t live where i live, i am absolutely sick to death of a 1.5 mile journey taking my son to school every morning taking 45mins, and the same picking him up, And as for it affecting the flooding problem, well that,s already been caused by overbuilding in this town, the only way to cure that is to knock buildings down and turn the land back into green belt, but i think you will find the council have other ideas, MORE HOUSES AND MORE MISERY, OH! AND YES MORE INCOME FOR THE W.O.D.C. GAINED IN ALL THAT EXTRA COUNCIL TAX, and if you think they give a **** about the misery caused by all this you must be stupid! This area stinks, the powers that be are snidy and corrupt, this traffic problem has been here for 20+ years and so has the flooding, and as yet no amount of public opinion has done anything to cure the problem, and i will eat my own **** if in 10 years time its been cured!
Wyn, Cogges says...
9:13pm Thu 14 Aug 08
Robert has mentioned the most viable alternative, make Shores Green a 4 way junction and create a new 4 way junction off Downs Road at Curbridge. Apart from this being a cheaper option, it will relieve the town centre traffic AND we will not be creating a 'bowl' at the edge of Langdale Common that will cause far worse flooding than we have seen during the last 12 months.
joe, deer park, witney says...
10:36pm Thu 14 Aug 08
http://westoxon.devp
lan.org.uk/document.
aspx?document=6&disp
lay=chapter&id=27
Looks a bit contradictory to me
"The Windrush Valley through Witney is a fundamental component of the towns attractive character. Quiet countryside along the arms of the river lies surprisingly close to the busy builtup areas. The special character of the green corridor through the town will be protected and enhanced under Policy WIT3 and other relevant policies of this Plan. A management strategy for the area covered by the Windrush in Witney Project was agreed by the Council in April 2005. The wide floodplain of the River Windrush south of Witney and the A40 lies within the Lower Windrush Valley Project Area (also see the Environment Chapter and Figure 3.5)."
Make your mind up WODC, you say its protected and then you want to build a great big road through it!!!!!!!!!
Tim, Witney says...
7:52am Fri 15 Aug 08
1. When Sainsburys were built the groundworks had started even before the planning permission was granted due to pressure from Lord Sainsbury at the time. And part of the agreement was that any link road would come out at the roundabout, so this was part of the big scheme to get everyone to go past Sainsburys
2. Alternate options were available a number of years ago, one of them was to build a link road from Witan way onto Bridge street, not the councils favourite option so they rushed through the Aquarius development on the site of the proposed link.
3. One last one is that the Cogges link road is partly funded by developers who already have allocations on the infill areas the road will create, oh and some of that will be on the flood plain, we have already had Aquarius, and so the apt name for a new estate should be called Atlantis.
No matter what happens the council are just going to dig their feet in until the Cogges link road is built, they have already promised too much to developers and do not want any other option to be successful.
Paul Timms, says...
12:58pm Sat 16 Aug 08
Paul Timms, Witney says...
1:33pm Sat 16 Aug 08
NIgel, Witney says...
3:00pm Sat 16 Aug 08
Anyone know where and what document that was. As if it says that then surely you have to build the cheaper one which I believe would be Shores Green by miles and then use the saved money else where. Possibly for a junction coming off the a40 at downs road
N J Wilcock, Cogges says...
10:35pm Sat 16 Aug 08
Many of whom will still probably use Staple Hall and Bridge St if they want to drive to the west rather than getting stuck in traffic waiting at the Station Lane / Ducklington Lane / Thorney Leys junction.
Jamie, Cogges, Witney says...
11:53am Tue 19 Aug 08
Most are just interested in being seen with David Cameron than doing their jobs. I thought that they were supposed to listen to people? Guess not...
Anyway, given the huge rate that Witney is growing (I don't object to the development of brown-field sites), more action is needed, not just Shores Green or the CLR:
Upgrade shores green to allow traffic from East Witney (Cogges & Madley et all) to leave Witney quickly AND
Invest in the Station Lane (McDonalds) junction - that is a proverbial nightmare at most times
AND
Install a new junction for curbridge, to allow traffic easy access to the inductrial estates and to Thorney Leys & Deer Park
This will be a significant cost, but without it, Witney will just choke completely.
CLR is not the answer - it is taking congestion and re-routing it to another heavily congested area while significantly increasing the risks of greater flooding on a beautiful meadow.
Note to the council - there is a magical tool called Google - use that to look up the meaning of "bottle neck"
If the CLR is built, will I be able to sue the council for negligence/crass stupidity when my house floods? Will I also obtain a reduction in council tax to cover the increased insurance costs for my home? No, I don't think so!
While we're at it, what about making the A40 to Oxford a dual carriageway....!
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Don, Witney says...
4:59pm Tue 12 Aug 08
The very fact that they intend to canvass the Cogges' residents will distort any results they may come up with. The only way to gauge public opinion is to present them with the unbiased facts and let them make their own mind up The simple fact is that Witney must have a second River crossing near the centre of town.