COUNCIL officials were taken around Oxford yesterday to look at potential routes for a new flood relief channel.

Government officials agreed to give £26m towards the £123m Western Conveyance scheme earlier this month.

Leading figures at Oxfordshire County Council and Oxford City Council have said the scheme can go ahead as £76m has been pledged.

County council leader Ian Hudspeth and figures from the Environment Agency and the city council visited Redbridge and Botley as they started to work out the channel’s route.

Mr Hudspeth said: “We were on a fact-finding mission to see the potential area where the relief channel could go, but we are still in the early stages.”

Once complete, the channel, which would run from the area around the Seacourt park-and-ride off Botley Road, to the River Thames at Sandford Lock, would divert water away from Oxford to stop flooding across the city.

About £2m will also be spent on flood relief measures in Abingdon.

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