Compensation to be paid to Botley Road businesses

Network Rail will pay up to £850,000 to compensate businesses disrupted by the prolonged closure of the main road next to Oxford station.

The blockade to replace a rail bridge over Botley Road will have lasted for three and a half years by the time it eventually reopens in August 2026. It had been planned to take two periods of six months.

The Rail Minister, Lord Peter Hendy, joined Network Rail’s chief executive, Sir Andrew Haines, at a briefing for local residents on 13 June.

The Department for Transport said the one-off goodwill payments would come from Network Rail funds. The process for applying for payments will be set out “in the coming weeks.” After visiting the site, Lord Hendy said: “While it can’t undo all the hardship businesses have faced, it recognises the trouble the delays have caused.”

Rebuilding the bridge is a key part of a £161 million upgrade to the railway station, as it prepares for the launch of East West Rail services later in 2025. A new station entrance is being built, along with a fifth platform. Local people attending the briefing said Network Rail admitted a cost overrun of £56 million so far.

Network Rail said that, following a reset of the project in January, work is on target to deliver a wider pedestrian path and cycleway beneath the railway by the end of August. Its next task is to divert the local sewer system.

It states that the completed project will mean more trains, better accessibility and safer paths.

Oxford leaders also hope it will eventually lead to passenger services extending along the freight-only Cowley branch to the south of the city centre.

“Network Rail need to take all the booby prizes going, for a ham-fisted, over-budget, over-time infrastructure project,” local activist John Mair told RAIL. “This project will be taught in business and engineering schools for years as a case study of how not to do it.”

The former tv producer explained: “The meeting had the air of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Botley Road is a main artery of the city, and site of two big retail parks and many small shops. Their supply line of customers was cut off.”

The owner of a piano shop near the station said he is closing down after more than three decades, because of the delays.

David Hogben of Courtney Pianos told BBC Radio Oxford the closure was “like falling off the edge of a cliff.”

He said the shop will close in August as a result of reduced footfall and uncertainty. He opened the premises in 1991.

“The feeling now is that we’ve got another year and a quarter to go, and that it’s just too long to hang out waiting for things to improve.”

Network Rail said it organised monthly public events and business workshops, offering updates and support.

Marcus Jones, Network Rail’s Western Route Director, said: “We know the delays to this project have been frustrating. The good news is that the project is now firmly back on track, and we’re making strong progress.”