The following article was written for the Winter 2024 issue of The Forty magazine

Our Transport Committee met in October to discuss many transport matters in our village. The Highways team at Oxfordshire County Council (OCC) is responsible for roads and footpaths, and transport projects often require large budgets. The Parish Council can help provide a voice for our community as well as local resources and knowledge. We therefore work closely with OCC, partners including Great Western Railway, and representatives of other nearby towns and villages on all things transport.

How can you get involved?

Share knowledge and skills

• Cholsey Station: Could you help build a case for improving accessibility at Cholsey Station? We would love to hear from anyone with an interest in this campaign.

• Cycling: we have been invited to join an OCC project to develop a Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan for our area. Local knowledge is key and there may be opportunities for residents to get involved as this project develops.

• All-weather Recreation Ground path: Do you have contacts or experience in transport consultancy, engineering or construction? If so, you may be able to help us take this project forward. We received around 200 responses to our community survey about a path through the Rec; the results are available on the CPC website or from the Parish Office.

• Reading Road A329 crossing: This development came frustratingly close to going ahead in 2023. It then stalled due to restructuring and the need to revisit budgets at OCC. Our Parish Councillors continue to pursue this, and residents can also write to our County Councillor Felix Bloomfield at Felix.Bloomfield@Oxfordshire.gov.uk

Volunteer

• Become a Fix My Street Super User for Cholsey!  Super Users receive training from OCC to monitor certain roads and pavements and can then fast track issues for repair (e.g. potholes). If you would like to find out more please email us.

• Join the new Station Gardening Group helping to green the station, including planting new beds and looking after the planters provided by the Bee Friendly Trust

• Join the Community-led Speedwatch Group. This scheme is funded and led by Thames Valley Police but coordinated by the volunteers themselves.  If you would like to help monitor and reduce speeding in our village, please get in touch.

Prune hedges!

• Maintaining footpath accessibility is a widespread issue. OCC does not have the budget and capacity to ensure all paths remain sufficiently clear across the county.  The Parish Council is actively looking into what more can be done at a local level. In the meantime, if your hedges are over-growing pavements and making them hard to access, please do cut them back before the nesting season starts at the beginning of March. Please also be mindful that with our changing climate, birds may start to nest earlier in the season and so adapting the hedge-cutting period may be necessary.

Get Active

• We are lucky to have Cholsey Station to travel locally or further afield, but there continues to be a problem with people parking their cars in the roads near the station and blocking parking for residents.  Please wherever possible could Cholsey residents cycle or walk to the station rather than drive. This not only reduces parking pressure on that area but helps us to be a healthier village!

Report it

• Do continue to report issues to OCC on ‘Fix My Street’ so a picture can be built up of where action is needed.

Keep in touch

• Meetings of full Council and the Transport Committee are all meetings held in public. Agendas are published on the website and Council noticeboards the week before, and draft minutes follow soon after. We would love to involve residents more in what we do.

Some other transport-related news…

• At the time of writing we have just heard that OCC have approved a change in speed limits for Cholsey following their consultation in July. This means that most roads in the village will become 20mph, with a reduction in speed limit along sections of the Wallingford Road to 40mph and 30mph.

• We are also awaiting the parking changes agreed following an OCC consultation in January. Please look out for more information coming soon, including which areas will need to be kept clear for line-marking work. Once the new restrictions have been put in place, parking will then be enforced by OCC’s contractors.