What next for station scheme beset by roadwork delays?

After three years of chaos and delay, a key route in the centre of Oxford finally reopened in the early hours of Sunday morning.

The Botley Road, to the west of the city, first closed in April 2023 for what was initially planned to be just six months.

The much-maligned work makes up just one part in a larger Network Rail project to modernise and increase the capacity of Oxford Railway Station - which is the fourth busiest in the south-east (not including London terminus).

Among the proposals are the addition of a brand new platform and station entrance - complete with shops, toilets and a ticket office.

But the persistent delays to the Botley Road works, alongside a £73m increase in the cost of the project, has thrown its future into doubt.

Local resident, and crossbench peer in the House of Lords, Baroness Deech has been a consistent critic of the Botley Road works and has questioned the future of the wider project.

"Like thousands of residents on the west side of the station, our lives have been seriously blighted over the last three-and-a-half years by the ill-thought-out, badly prepared, slovenly work by Network Rail," she said.

That sentiment has also been shared by business owners and residents to the west of the station during the past three years.

"The failures of project management here have exposed in a nutshell the reasons why we struggle to build infrastructure in this country," Oxford West and Abingdon Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran added.

Network Rail has said the next phase of the Oxford Railway Station project is currently in planning - including the proposed station improvements.

A spokesperson for the rail body said any developments would make the station "easier to access and better able to accommodate future growth".

It would also "support" the soon-to-begin East West Rail trains, which will eventually link Oxford and Cambridge, and the proposed Cowley Branch line.

The changes would also "help reduce congestion, improve passenger journeys and support economic growth across Oxfordshire and the wider region", Network Rail added.

But the public body said much of the work had been "paused to allow full focus on re-opening Botley Road as early as possible".

A timeline shared with local residents in August suggested funding would be in place for the next steps by the end of 2026 - with design work on the new western station entrance taking place the year after.

In the meantime, work on rebuilding Sheepwash rail bridge and constructing the new platforms, four and five, is listed to begin in 2027.

According to the timeline, all of the work on the next phase of the Oxford Station project is expected to end by 2029.

But Baroness Deech has raised questions about the project's costs - and how it will be funded.

Responding to this, rail minster Lord Hendy said the estimated cost was £237.4m, but that this "does not include the full cost of the final delivery phase of the project".

These additional costs, he said, were "currently proceeding through Network Rail and Department for Transport approvals".

But Baroness Deech said: "There's no money left for a new platform, there's no money for a new western entrance... nothing has been achieved at all.

"Even when it [Botley Road] does open, we will not have a new western entrance to the station, we will not have a new platform five."

"What's it all been about?"

Moran added that many locally had "lost faith in the project".

"We must now see the long-promised improvements to Oxford station," she urged.

"Businesses and residents have suffered, and the least that Network Rail can do is finally deliver the station we all deserve."