Village News

The Bicester Road between the Spinney and the rail bridge will be closed between 9.30am and 3pm for 12 days from 24 July.

This is so that the improvements to the Bicester Road pavement outside the Church can take place.

The Road Order is available

The Council has regularly acknowledged the state of the roads in the village.

As the roads are adopted and maintained by Oxfordshire County Council, it is not possible to deter anyone from using the public road.  However, over the last four years, the Parish Council has:

• arranged for a 20mph Zone outside the school and funded half (other half funded through OCC Councillor Localities grant provided by Ian Corkin);
• applied for the 20mph village area (in December 2021) – see the information about the consultation on the Parish Council webpage
• set up the Speedwatch group – but has highlighted that the group needed volunteers for it to run;
• discussed the options with the Highways Officer about the relocation of the HGV weight limit from the Bull crossroads to the Charbridge Lane roundabout;
• discussed the options with the Highways Officer about improvements to The Bull crossroads including implementation of yellow lines to assist with visibility for vehicles exiting Station Road;
• discussed the options with the Highways Officer about whether it would be possible to install traffic calming on the Blackthorn Road;
• asked the County Councillor (Ian Corkin) for assistance with funding for more monitoring, traffic calming and new speed indicator devices;
• asked the EWR team for the mobile speed indicator device which had been in place on Bicester Road since February and had had a positive impact on the speed of vehicles coming into the village from Bicester;
• asked the OCC Highways / Footpaths team to improve the pavement outside the church (scheduled for July).

Many other road calming solutions have been investigated, but traffic calming measures such as speed humps along the Bicester and Blackthorn Roads are not as straight forward as first thought because of the number of driveways and road entrances which, of course, cannot be impeded.  This was why it was so difficult to find a suitable place for the temporary pedestrian crossing during the EWR works.

Chicanes are also not as easy to site for the same reason as the speed humps.

Unfortunately, the physical positioning of traffic light equipment at the crossroads would not be straight forward because of the narrow pavements and the limitations on where the poles could be sited.

As you can see, it is not simple!  But the Parish Council IS working with the OCC Highways team to try to find solutions.

The Parish Council is responsible for the grass cutting of the village verges (apart from the unadopted areas such as Yew Tree, Launton Grange etc) which are cut at least once a month by our contractors, together with the rural areas within the parish boundaries which are cut two or three times a year.

Details of all the Public Rights of Way (PRoW) are available on the Countryside Access Map at https://publicrightsofway.oxfordshire.gov.uk/standardmap.aspx

Just type ‘Launton’ into the Town / Village location and it will take you to the detail.

The village is very fortunate to have two Footpath Wardens who check the routes but the actual maintenance of the PRoWs is down to the OCC Countryside Access Team or the landowner.

However, not all the paths in use in Launton are actually Public Rights of Way  and this means that no group or person has responsibility for maintenance.  Any changes to footpaths requires Parliamentary approval which is a time consuming and costly process.

If you spot an issue, please take a note and a photograph and let us know – if it’s not the Parish Council’s responsibility, we will try to point you in the right direction about who to report it to.

Following the May elections, the Parish Council still has one Councillor vacancy.

More information about the Parish Council and what being a Councillor is all about is available on the Parish Council website at https://www.launton-pc.gov.uk/becoming-a-councillor/

Come and find out what we do and how YOU can make a difference on Thursday 1 June in the Parish Hall at 7.30pm.