Oxfordshire School Streets

We’d like to hear your thoughts on proposals to introduce school streets for the following schools in the county. Maps of the proposed school street locations can be seen in the documents folder on this page:

• Banbury – Harriers Banbury Academy
• Carterton – Edith Moorhouse Primary School and St Joseph's Catholic Primary School
• Didcot – Willowcroft Community Primary School and St Birinus Boys School
• Headington – Sandhills Community Primary School to extend the existing school street coverage to include Delbush Avenue

What are school streets?
The school streets programme was introduced through the UK government’s Department for Transport funded active travel programme in 2021. Creating a car-free environment makes it easier and safer for children and their families to travel by walking, cycling, or scooting to school and means that they can leave the car at home. They are intended to create safer and healthier environments outside schools, and work by minimising the volume of motorised vehicles entering the road outside a school during their busy drop-off and pick-up times.

A key priority for Oxfordshire County Council is to create a transport network that makes active travel the first choice for short journeys. The term ‘active travel’ includes walking, cycling and wheeling. School streets is a part of our safe streets policy in our Local Transport and Connectivity Plan (LTCP), (Local Transport and Connectivity Plan) and is in our Active Travel Strategy (Active travel Strategy). The aim is to create a safer, healthier, and more welcoming environment where pupils, parents and carers, and staff can walk, wheel, cycle, scoot or park and walk to school whilst benefiting from better air quality and less traffic congestion. Getting to school without a car | Oxfordshire County Council

A school street is developed by working in collaboration with schools, implementing additional active travel measures to support the increase in travelling to school by walking, wheeling, cycling, and scooting, whilst reducing car-use, and car-dependence.
School streets aim to:

• reduce traffic congestion and inappropriate vehicle use
• open streets up to people walking, wheeling, cycling, and scooting
• improve road safety
• improve air quality
• provide opportunities to improve physical and mental health
• provide opportunities for children to travel to school together with their friends, building social skills
• support children so they arrive at school, energised and ready to learn
• teach children road safety and travel independence, increasing their travel confidence
  
  

What we are proposing
We are proposing to introduce school streets at the schools below. These will close a section of the road outside the school’s entrance for a short period of time during school drop-off and pick-up times on school days only. The period of time is usually for 45 minutes - 1 hour.

Headington – Sandhills Community Primary School. We are also consulting on proposals to make minor amendments to improve the existing school street for Sandhills Community Primary School in Headington so that it works better for the school and school neighbourhood. This is to address concerns raised about vehicles using Delbush Avenue for school run parking and presenting potential hazards for accessing properties in the road, or walking/wheeling safely on the pavement.

The school street currently covers Terrett Avenue, Elton Close and Sweet Green Close. It is proposed to add Delbush Avenue – from the Merewood Avenue junction up to the Hill View junction to the existing school street arrangement. The operating times for the Sandhills Community Primary School school street would remain as they are currently: between 8.00am - 9.00am and 2:30 - 3:30pm on school days.

All of the above school streets proposals are to operate the school street during a set, short time-period – during drop-off and pick-up time, in term-time only, and enforced by one or more automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras.

The cameras would be located at the access point to the school street and only be active during these set time-periods. They would send an automatic penalty charge notice to the address associated with the license plate details of non-exempt vehicles entering the school street area during that period.

Exemptions: People living in the school street (or streets only accessible from the school street) can register their cars to ensure they are registered as exempt for that school street and preserve their access to their homes while the school street is operating. Vehicles such as emergency service vehicles, and blue badge holders’ vehicles, would also be exempt. You can see the full list of exemptions (including taxis, carers, school buses, Royal Mail and waste and utilities vehicles) here. Please note that addresses in Sinodun Road, Abbott Close and Bridge Close in Didcot would also be exempt as they are reliant on streets within the school street for access [see plan].

What happens next?

The county council will review the responses and prepare a report to be presented to the council’s cabinet later this year. This will be a public meeting at which members of the public can apply to speak. The agenda and reports for meetings will be made available on the Oxfordshire County Council website about a week before the meeting. If the decision is made to trial the school street this would begin in early 2026. We would write to addresses within the school streets to be trialled with details for ensuring a vehicle exemption for the school street ahead of this and a consultation would open allowing you to share your feedback.

This survey covers all of the proposed school streets and the proposed school street extension. You will have the options to skip sections and only answer the sections of the survey you would like to if you do not wish to comment on the proposals for all of the schools.

Please fill in our online survey by clicking the ‘TAKE SURVEY’ button below.

The survey is open from 12pm on Monday 1 September 2025 until 11:59pm on Monday 13 October 2025. All responses must be received by 11.59pm on 13 October 2025 when the survey closes.

Any questions?

You may find the answer to your question in the FAQs on this page. Or you can send a question, share your feedback or request a paper survey form by emailing: SchoolsActiveTravel@Oxfordshire.gov.uk or calling Oxfordshire County Council's customer services team on 01865 792422 (who will ask a member of the school streets team to contact you).

Please note:

This survey and proposal is separate to proposals for: Proposed permit parking area – Didcot Centre South which the county council is consulting on from 10 September until 10 October 2025: Further to councillor engagement with residents in roads south of Didcot Broadway, officers are currently working on proposals to bring forward proposals for the introduction of a permit parking area. The proposed zone will cover an area including roads south of the Broadway, up to and including Kynaston Road and from Hagbourne Road, across to Newlands Avenue. Residents affected by the Proposed permit parking area - Didcot Centre South proposals will be written to in September, and plans and information are now available on Let's Talk Oxfordshire.