Broad Street project

A wider pedestrian area with seating and planting creates an environment where people can meet with friends and socialise, or just take a break and enjoy the area between working, sightseeing, shopping, dining, or seeing shows or concerts

The scheme is provisionally set to stay in place for up to 18 months.

About the project

As one of our priorities, we are delivering new access to green space throughout Oxfordshire’s urban areas to promote wellbeing, and a greener cityscape while encouraging less reliance on motor vehicles for local trips.

Providing a social open space in Oxford’s Broad Street builds on the success of a similar project in 2021 and aligns with our aims for the county.

When Broad Meadow was introduced between July and October 2021 it drew more than 100,000 visitors with 90% of respondents to a consultation by Oxford City Council saying they would like to see the project happen again.

This new Broad Street scheme offers a larger public space for the local community, businesses and event organisers to use throughout the year for an experimental period from autumn 2022 to spring 2024.

The street is in the heart of the city centre, surrounded by historic buildings, and next to some of Oxford’s most popular streets for shopping, dining, and entertainment. The Covered Market has entrances on Broad Street as well as the High Street and Cornmarket Street.

Approval for an Experimental Traffic Regulation Order (ETRO) for a temporary public realm scheme of the street was given on Thursday 21 July 2022, as part of a delegated decision meeting for highways management. [Item 4, pp1-13].

As a part of the formal ETRO, there will be a consultation lasting six months to understand the impact and overall success of the scheme. This will include an online survey opening when the scheme launches. Depending on the successes and experiences of the scheme after 18 months, there is scope to consider extending the project or repeating it in future. This would involve opening it out to further public consultation to help decide and shape any future proposals.

There are more details about the scheme in our press release.

Consultation

Between February and July 2022, we undertook an extensive consultation programme with over 150 stakeholders on the proposed scheme including working closely with Oxford City Council, councillor briefings and stakeholder engagement with emergency services, bus operators, NHS, University of Oxford and colleges, disability groups, local businesses, cycling and walking groups.

You can share your views with us on the Broad Street project on our Let’s Talk Oxfordshire platform until 24 April 2023.

A separate statutory consultation relating to the Broad Street project was undertaken to temporarily relocate some disabled bays and a motorcycle bay originally on Broad Street to alternative streets.  This consultation was held from 24 August to 16 September 2022 and is now closed. The result of this consultation was to proceed with the disabled bays and new bus stop on Parks Road and relocated (reduced) motorcycle bay on St Giles.

Christmas Market

1-18 December 2022

Oxford’s popular Christmas Market returns to Broad Street from 1 to 18 December 2022. This year there will be festive stalls for you to browse, and you will be able to enjoy the social area at the eastern end of Broad Street provided by our Broad Street project.

The Christmas Market opening times are Sunday to Wednesday, 10am to 6.30pm and Thursday to Saturday, 10am to 8pm.

To ensure safety for pedestrians and wheelchair users during the Christmas Market, it will not be possible to cycle in the western section of Broad Street during daytime hours from 28 November between 28 November and 19 December 2022 while the Christmas Market is running.

During this time, in addition to the western section of Broad Street being closed and parking/driving between Turl Street and Magdalen Street East is suspended.

We will be trialling two alternative cycling options this year for accessing Broad Street western section and the rest of the city whilst the market is running. Between 28 November 2022 and 19 December 2022 only it will be possible to cycle through Queen Street, and on Cornmarket by Ship Street and George Street.

Read the highways notice here (pdf format)

Project and work schedules

Please note the dates below are planned dates. The actual dates that works take place may occasionally be subject to minor changes depending on external circumstances such as severe weather or highway incidents.