AN URBAN design expert from Oxford has outlined how he thinks Cowley Road could be made safer.

Last week, a county court judge criticised the layout of the busy road after an accident involving cyclist David Simms and a bus.

Cyclists also claimed that the changes - part of a £1.3m scheme to make the road safer - put them more at risk.

Prof Graham Smith, from Abingdon Road, who lectures on urban design and architecture at Oxford Brookes University, has detailed changes that could be made to avoid such accidents in future.

He said: "The only safe thing with a street like Cowley Road is for the traffic to be made to give way to pedestrians everywhere. A place that is good for pedestrians is probably going to be fairly good for cycling."

Controversially, one of the key measures Prof Smith suggested was adding more, rather than less, parking.

He said it was vital to keep shoppers in the area rather than pushing them elsewhere - and parking was key to that.

Prof Smith said: "I don't think there is any way you could realistically make it a pedestrianised area and therefore I think the thing you should try to do is to make it a mixed, vibrant local shopping area.

"Although there are mixed views on how much parking you should provide, in a place like Cowley Road I would aim to get as much parking as possible to make the road narrow and to make sure the traffic has to go as slowly as possible."

He believed this had not been considered as it would slow down the buses - but he said this problem could easily be overcome.

He said: "If you slowed down the traffic sufficiently, meaning pedestrians could cross where they liked, you could probably take out the pedestrian crossings and in the end your journey would take roughly the same time."

Prof Smith has been teaching urban design at the university since 1970.

He said a study completed by one of his students indicated that more than 50 per cent of journeys to or in the Cowley Road were by foot - and said pedestrians therefore should take precedence.

On Friday we reported how Mr Simms, 45, suffered a broken arm after he fell trying to avoid a bus in a stretch near Tesco where the road has been narrowed. Judge Charles Harris said the constrictions had not made life any easier for bus drivers and cyclists.

A total of £1.3m was spent on improving Cowley Road. Work finished in November 2005.

Oxfordshire County Council, which was behind the scheme, believed it had been successful with a 40 per cent reduction in accidents, 20 per cent in those involving cyclists.