A PETITION asking to redraw plans for The Plain roundabout in Oxford as been delivered to Oxfordshire County Council.

The council has put together proposals to make the busy roundabout more cycle-friendly.

It is planning to spend more than £960,000 on the scheme, with work scheduled to start in the autumn.

But Graham Smith, who represents the South East on the Cyclists Touring Club council, said a number of cycle-friendly aspects of the design have been removed.

He said: “We petitioned the council to reconsider, urgently, the current design for The Plain and the design approach.

“With four-out-of-five possibly pro-cycling elements removed, only the costly stone-footway is left.

“The county’s concept is destroyed. This wasteful, mostly irrelevant design, must be revisited, urgently.”

He said more segregated space for cyclists is needed and changes should be made to the road around the roundabout.

County councillor David Nimmo Smith, the cabinet member for transport, said: “Even if we were able to make all the changes that have been suggested, other road users would certainly lose out – in this case huge numbers of bus passengers would face considerable delays if we made the traffic go even slower than we are already proposing.”

The petition was signed by 17 people.

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