Care company turns to bikes to beat railway station roadwork congestion – and gets a pleasant surprise

A care company in Oxford has turned to bikes to help its staff beat congestion caused by major roadworks around the city’s railway station, currently undergoing a £161 million modernisation programme – and has discovered that getting its employees on two wheels has had a transformative effect on the business.

A 500-metre stretch of Botley Road has been closed since April and works will continue until late 2024, with Network Rail also replacing the bridge that carries the railway line from London to Oxford over it.

The city’s location on a floodplain means that there are a limited number of routes for motor traffic into and out of the centre, and Botley Road is the sole one to the west, its long-term closure meaning that drivers have to use the ring road instead, adding time to their journeys and creating more congestion on the outskirts of Oxford.

ITV Meridian News reports that Bellevie Care, which employs carers to look after patients across the city, found that the delays caused by the ongoing works were affecting staff recruitment and retention – until it hit upon the idea of encouraging staff to get in the saddle.

Emma Pithers, who is a Wellbeing Support Leader at the company, said that the change of focus also widened the pool of potential employees.

“We’ve managed to recruit people much easier than we did when we were just looking for drivers,” she said.

“It also means we’ve  been able to focus our attention on those specific areas, and people know exactly when they’re going to turn up, they haven’t got to worry about parking,” she added.

One of the company’s employees who has been given a bike, Julie Nicholls, said that being on two wheels made it much easier for her to get to patients, reaching them in half the time it would take if she were driving.

“It's so much easier because you can get through the traffic,” she explained. “If I wanted to go to Botley from here I could go past the train station, if I drove I’d have to go all the way round [the ring road], and it’s easier to park a bike and much more efficient these days.”

Richard Griffiths of Network Rail acknowledged that the ongoing works are proving inconvenient to many people, but said that the project would bring long-term benefits, including for active travel.

“It’s going to benefit so many different forms of transport,” he said. “We’re improving some of the road junctions so it will be better for motorists, it will be better for the buses that go up and down Botley Road.

“We’re going to have these big four metre-wide paths for pedestrians and cyclists to use, and of course we’re going to deliver a bigger, better railway as well, ultimately.

“So that’s going to be really good news, but we know it can be painful for some local people as we get there,” he added.

Local cycling campaign group Cyclox has long campaigned for safer provision for cyclists around the station, with the existing, single-span Victorian bridge creating a dangerous bottleneck as it passes beneath the railway lines, as well as elsewhere on the Botley Road corridor.

In 2004, cyclist Lisa Harker sustained serious injuries and lost her unborn child when the driver of an 18-tonne lorry crashed into her immediately to the west of the railway bridge.

And in 2017, the father of Claudia Comberti, killed when she was run over by a bus driver after it is believed that her foot slipped on the pedal of her bike, called for segregated cycle lanes to be installed along Botley Road.

> Oxford cyclist killed by bus fell after foot slipped off pedal

In 2012, Sustrans named Botley Road as one of the ten roads and junctions across the country where urgent attention was needed to make conditions safer for cyclists.

> Sustrans highlights ten of Britain's worst roads and junctions for cyclists

National Cycling Network Manager Martyn Brunt said at the time: “Cyclists have to give way on shared use path at multiple intersections, culminating in an accident black-spot at the railway bridge and a six lane motorway outside the station.”

The latter is a reference to Frideswide Square, to the east of the station heading into the city centre which has since been completely overhauled, although the original plans for the layout were much criticised by Cyclox.

Meanwhile, in a blog post earlier this year on the Cyclox website, Lois Muddiman, who sits on Oxford City Councillor as the Green councillor for Osney and St Thomas Ward, wrote that once the works around the station have been completed, “the new road layout will offer a choice of raised cycle/footways or cycle lanes on both sides.”

While the road is closed, cyclists can push their bikes along the pedestrian tunnel through the bridge, although the councillor acknowledged that it could become congested at times and suggested alternative routes they could take.

She added: “To ensure that cyclists feel safe when the road reopens, we need further improvements to the cycling infrastructure for all of Botley Road.”