Safer Roads Oxford: Banbury Road and Iffley Road

About the scheme 

Safer Roads is a project that aims to improve road safety on some of our busiest roads. The work was substantially completed by the end of November 2025.

Key elements involved physical amendments at side road junctions, including;

• Continuous footway designs to assert priority for people using the footway
• Ramps for motor vehicles turning into and out of side roads.
• Narrower crossing distances for pedestrians, wider footway areas and tighter radii on junctions to slow the speed of vehicles turning in or out of side roads
• Rain gardens and areas of greening

These improvements aim to:

• Improve safety for pedestrians, cyclists, riders, and those wheeling
• Ensure pedestrians maintain their legal priority over vehicles turning into or out of side roads
• Slow vehicle speeds 

Analysis of recorded collision data suggests that there are concentrations of collisions at junctions. In urban areas, people walking or cycling are particularly at risk of being involved in these collisions. 

Continuous footways 

To help improve safety and assert legal priority for pedestrians at side roads, continuous footway crossings were installed as part of the Safer Roads project.  They have a number of benefits including:

• Raising the carriageway to the footway level where the footway crosses the side road. This helps to reduce the speed of vehicles entering and exiting side roads and ensures that there is level access supporting those with restricted mobility.
• Pedestrian crossings located on desire lines to avoid detours and the use of dropped kerbs for pedestrians.
• Footway crossings that at a minimum are the same width as the main pavement and uses the same surfacing material as the adjacent pavement. This provides a visual reinforcement that pedestrians have a legal priority at side roads.
• Tightened corner radii and narrowing of the carriageway in side roads – Physical measures to ensure reduce the entry and exist speeds of vehicles and improve sightlines.
• Shorter crossing distances for pedestrians and wider footway spaces 

Application to the Safer Roads Fund Scheme

Such junction treatments are being successfully rolled out nationally.

All the junction designs were discussed and considered by our co-design groups. This group included representation of bus companies, Cyclox, Oxford Liveable Streets, and OxPA to name a few.  We met multiple times to consult this group on initial designs, detailed designs and confirm any necessary alterations just before construction started.

The entry kerbs used on ten of the twelve junctions on the Banbury and Iffley Roads are standard-design entry kerbs, supplied by Hardscape, known as Dutch entry kerbs because of their widespread use in the Netherlands for more than 30 years.  The kerbs are recommended for use in LTN 1/20, a key guidance document when designing for active travel and through Active Travel England.

A Road Safety Audit (RSA) stage1/2 was undertaken in July 2025 and the feedback from this was considered in final designs. For example, the RSA raised the need for double yellow lines to stop at the edge of each junction to highlight the space through which motor vehicles do need to cross the cycle paths and footways. The rain gardens have also been placed to help highlight each junction. 

Remedial works, and defect items, are currently being assessed and any identified measures will be completed. In addition, planting works to the rain gardens are expected to be undertaken in January 2026.

The post-completion RSA3 is expected to be undertaken in the next three months on the implemented works at both Banbury Road and Iffley Road. We will continue to monitor the performance of these junctions and their safety, including a final RSA carried out one year post-completion (in or around October 2026).

History behind project development

The second statutory consultation on the proposals to construct new side road entry treatments at various junctions along the Banbury Road and Iffley Road, Oxford, ran from 27 February to 28 March 2025.. The consultation responses were collated and considered at the Cabinet Member Decision Meeting on Tuesday 24 June, where the Safer Roads Fund Project was approved for progression to construction.

Why are we investing here? 

‘Safer Roads’ is a part of our vision zero commitment to work toward a goal of zero serious or fatal road traffic accidents on the county and city roads by 2050. 

Most of the accidents we have been looking into on Banbury Road and on Iffley Road were on or near junctions with side roads, so it is imperative that we make these junctions safer to prevent future accidents

There are three key objectives for this project: 

• Provide better pedestrian and cycling facilities.
• Reduce the risk and number of collisions and accidents.
• Reduce the number of fatal/serious injuries/casualties involving pedestrians and cyclists. 

The project supports our Local Transport and Connectivity Plan (LTCP).

By providing better pedestrian and cycling facilities, the project is considered to address three of our nine strategic priorities directly:

1. Put actions to address the climate emergency at the heart of our work.
2. Invest in an inclusive, integrated, and sustainable transport network.
3. Prioritise the health and well-being of residents.

How is it being funded? 

We made a bid for funding to make key safety improvements on Banbury Road and Iffley Road in 2023 and were awarded £1.675m from the Department for Transport’s Safer Roads Fund to deliver the safety works 

The funding is provided with the condition that it is used only for new safety improvements on these specific roads. that will protect people travelling on these roads, especially vulnerable road users. It can not be used to fund other roadworks, such as pothole repairs.

Contact us:

If you would like to know more about the project , or have any queries on the implemented works you can contact us by emailing the project team:

• saferroadsfund@oxfordshire.gov.uk

Or by writing to: 
Safer Roads Fund Project
Oxfordshire County Council
County Hall
New Road
Oxford
OX1 1ND