It all started so well this morning with traffic flowing smoothly along West St Helen Street. But by lunchtime, a queue of traffic had slowed to a crawl.

The usual school run chaos is over for a few weeks. Although term officially ends tomorrow (22nd July), many local schools are having inset days on the 21st and 22nd. With staff training underway and students at home, the school year is effectively over.

Even so, by midday, Radio Oxford was reporting traffic problems — not across Oxfordshire, just here in Abingdon. Temporary traffic lights on Ock Street were causing long tailbacks, holding up drivers trying to get out of the town centre via the High Street, and all its tributaries. Radio Oxford said it added twenty minutes to the journey from Culham, and fifteen minutes from West St Helen Street.

One man sitting in his car told me, ‘I’ve lived here since 1978, and the traffic just keeps getting worse.’

By the afternoon, things had quietened down as the temporary lights were switched off. But the lights might be back over the next couple of days.

Enabling works are well underway on the Lodge Hill A34 interchange upgrade. Since the earlier blog post announcing the start of construction, more progress has been made – especially on the works depot and car park. This area will eventually link a new roundabout on the A4183 (Oxford Road) with a new slip road onto the southbound A34 towards Newbury, helping to ease traffic through Abingdon.

Further vegetation clearance has taken place near the existing slip road from Oxford. This is in preparation for one of the two new roundabouts. It will connect the slip road from Oxford and the new slip road towards Newbury with the A4183.

There has been some clearance for the other new roundabout. It will connect the new slip road from Newbury and the slip road to Oxford with the A4183.

The main construction work — including the two roundabouts forming the new ‘dumbbell’ layout and south facing slip roads — is due to begin in late summer 2025. As part of the project, the access road to Egertons will be re-routed.

The contractor working to connect sewers for the new North Abingdon housing had a permit to carry out roadworks on Oxford Road from 28 April to 17 September 2025. However, progress has stalled once again.

The delay follows the discovery of an uncharted water main, which now requires a further redesign in coordination with Thames Water. This comes after an earlier redesign caused the project to be postponed to this summer.

In response, Oxfordshire County Council has cancelled the permit and told the developer to clear the site and return with a revised plan. As a result, it now appears that the works at the Oxford Road roundabout will not be completed any time soon — though this does not affect the A34 interchange, only the Oxford Road and roundabout.

The County Council told the contractor to fully open the road by 23 June. As this deadline has not been met (see picture from today – 25 June 2025), overrun penalties now apply:
* £5,000 per day for the first three days
* £10,000 per day thereafter

The County Council has pointed out that the work has broken some of the agreed rules of the permit, including:
* No one was on site to manage traffic by hand when needed
* Work was done outside the allowed hours
* A safe temporary crossing for pedestrians wasn’t provided
* There were long periods with no work happening and no explanation given

The Council has made it clear that while essential infrastructure work is supported, it must be done responsibly, transparently, and to a high standard.

County and Town Councillors and Highways Officers have played a role in pressing for a new plan for the works and fully opening the road.

A sinkhole that appeared in Abingdon on Friday 13 June has been repaired within four working days. Traffic flow through the town, which had been disrupted due to temporary traffic management, returned to normal on Thursday 19 June, earlier than the expected completion date of Friday 20 June.

The hole was reported by a member of the public on Friday evening. An on-call team from Oxfordshire County Council’s principal highways contractor, M Group, discovered that the hole was over 1.2 metres deep and showing widening cracks. They immediately made the area safe, erecting barriers and signs to alert public to the hole. To reduce risk of traffic vibrations worsening the hole, two-way traffic lights were put in place to ensure public safety.

A technical inspection on Monday 16 June showed no clear cause of the sinkhole. Highways teams worked over a four-day period to repair the hole and to install new kerbing and added a ‘fluted’ channel to divert surface water from the footway to reduce the risk of further damage.

While working on the site the team discovered a horse’s jawbone and tooth, believed to have been there for over 100 years.

Thanks to Marc from Oxfordshire County Council for the update and images.