Investigating
Cycle/Pedestrian path 30% overgrown
Sent to Oxfordshire County Council less than a minute later
No problem with encouraging wild vegetation growth, but it shouldn't be allowed to obstruct cycleways, especially where these are shared with pedestrians. Along this stretch, vegetation (including many stinging nettles) has been allowed to encroach across the path, reducing its 4m width to less than 2m in several places. This is well below the requirement, and last Sunday was creating inconvenience and danger because it was busy with walkers and cyclists.
Council ref: ENQ241014168
Updates
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Thank for you for your report, Oxfordshire County Council are receiving large volumes of enquiries at present. To assist us further with your enquiry, please could you provide an image of the issue including the surrounding area of its location as a benchmark. This information will support us in delivering a quicker and more effective service. PLEASE NOTE – Only take photographs where safe in doing so, please do not obstruct live traffic flows, step into a live carriageway, or put yourself at any risk in taking a photo. Thank you in advance for supporting the local community.
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I've just realised that this report hasn't been accepted because the location wasn't clear enough. I had placed the marker in exactly the right place on the map. But the stretch of Thames cycleway that was badly overgrown is the stretch between Oxford's southern ring road bridge across the Thames and the Cowley Branch Line railway bridge. This whole strech needs cutting back at least to the tarmac edges
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This is still a problem, it hasn't been addressed since the original report and it is getting worse. In many places, the path is reduced in width to less than half the width of the pavement and this risks permanently damaging the paved surface as it becomes reclaimed by the vegetation.
To be clear, the affected area is, as previously described, the section of the riverside path south of the Eastern Bypass overpass and north of the Cowley branch line railway bridge.
In stark contrast with the section of the same path north of the Eastern Bypass overpass, which has been kept relatively clear of vegetation, the short unmaintained stretch described here is now insufficient to support the two-way cycle and pedestrian traffic for which the tarmacked path was designed.
The photo shows the southern end of this path, looking south towards the railway bridge, but it is not possible to accurately illustrate the problem as the affected area of the path is, unsurprisingly, concealed under the vegetation.
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They really don't care about the safety of anyone using this route. I've been reporting this for a year and a half with absolutely no response. I've reported it to Sustrans (who maintain the path south of the railway bridge), Oxford City Council (who maintain the path north of the fly-over), Oxfordshire County Council, the Vale of the White Horse (who are actually responsible for this stretch), and my local councillors. Absolutely nothing has happened. I've already seen two head-on collisions between bikes here.
I'm sure councillors will tweet about how tragic it is when someone is knocked down and seriously injured by a bike here, but for now they are content to do nothing. This was exactly what happened when someone was injured by overgrown vegetation along the A415. Suddenly that section got a trim, but it took a serious injury before anyone acted.
It's a pathetic failure of local government that allows several people to be injured because nobody can be bothered to trim a few 100m of grass.
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