If he were alive today, Thomas Sharp would surely have had something to say about the traffic chaos now gripping Oxford.

In Oxford Replanned in 1948, the town planner put forward extensive ideas for the city’s future, including enlarging the railway station.

It would have been part of a major transport hub, linked to a bus station on the site the Said Business School occupies today.

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Had that plan gone ahead, we would not have needed today to extend the railway station, widen the bridge, close Botley Road and create the disruption everyone is currently facing.

In 1948, Oxford had two railway stations - the Great Western on the present site and the London Midland and Scottish (LMS) where the business school now stands.

Sharp described both stations as deplorable and with nationalisation pending, there was widespread agreement that the two stations should be combined.

Outlining his plans, Sharp wrote: “The new joint station will be much larger than the present stations put together. Instead of two through lines, the companies intend to have six, and this will involve a much wider bridge over Botley Road.

“Besides the additional convenience which this joint enlarged station will give, the removal of the present LMS station will afford the opportunity of developing a well-organised traffic square and a well-planned bus station on its site.

Oxford Mail: “It will be possible to get the desired Transport Station, standing off a spacious new Station Square, with roads articulated to it from all parts of the city and districts beyond.”

Sharp said the Gloucester Green bus station was “wretchedly untidy, ill-organised and badly situated”.

He added: “It is too close to the city centre.

“All traffic to it must pass over the central streets, and it is inconveniently far from the railway station.

“Here, it will be on the inner ring road and yet within a very short distance of the most central parts of the city.”

He concluded that if his suggestions were adopted, Oxford would have rail and bus stations that were worthy of it - stations that would greet the traveller “with promises of riches instead of a display of beggary and with recollections of beauty rather than squalor”.

Historian Malcolm Graham, former head of the Centre for Oxfordshire Studies, reminded us of Sharp’s enthusiasm for a transport hub.

This was the 14th of 52 recommendations Sharp made to the city and like most of them, it was turned down.

Others not to see the light of day included moving the Covered Market into St Ebbe’s, shifting the Oxford Union to the market site and, most memorably, his plans for a road across Christ Church Meadow to relieve High Street, an idea which stirred up opposition not only locally but across the world.

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About the author 

Andy is the Trade and Tourism reporter for the Oxford Mail and you can sign up to his newsletters for free here. 

He joined the team more than 20 years ago and he covers community news across Oxfordshire.

His Trade and Tourism newsletter is released every Saturday morning. 

You can also read his weekly Traffic and Transport newsletter.