Oxford City Council: Install lights along the path at the top of South Park

My daughter will be starting at Cheney in just over a years time and she would like to be able to lone cycle and walk and we would welcome this light installation.

I support this petition. I have frequently found it enormously difficult to find my way in the dark along this path.

I've read and re-read the wording of the petition and can find no justification for your description of it as "emotive, sensationalist and utterly misleading" or as being "designed to heighten the reader's sense of dread". Indeed, if there is any emphatic language at all, it is your own: "absolutely opposed", "meaningless rhetoric", "utterly", "sensationalist" are words from you that convey little more than a bulldozing approach to argument rather than a search for understanding. So it takes less than six minutes to walk around the problem, does it? Do you use crutches? Do you use a wheelchair? Are you elderly and infirm and take longer than two minutes to cross the park on the path? I have used the path many, many times over seven years, and it is indeed enormously difficult to see at night. My own experience of using the path is the same as that of most of those who have commented. I support this petition.

This is essential for lighting to be provided

This is essential for lighting to be provided

I am absolutely opposed to lighting the path at the top of South Park because, first, it would involve unnecessary expenditure of limited resources, including energy, and, second, it would greatly increase light pollution in one of the very few relatively open-access relatively dark areas of East Oxford. I use the path regularly and very frequently walk my dog late at night in the eastern end of South Park. I challenge the claim that the path is “extremely dark”: it is not, the path can be seen throughout its length even on the darkest night walking northwards from Warneford Lane. Walking southwards from Cheney Lane, the path is difficult to discern only for a very short stretch immediately after entering the park until one’s eyes become accustomed to the lower light. The claim that the path is “potentially dangerous” is meaningless rhetoric. The well-it streets of the Divinity Road Area and the Cowley Road, where accidents and assaults are far more frequent than they are in South Park, are demonstrably far more dangerous. Anyone wishing to do so can walk along well-it Cheney Lane and Warneford Lane and thus avoid the path through the park; while it takes a little more than two minutes to cross the park, it takes less than six minutes to walk around the two long sides of the triangle. Indeed, the only sure way to protect pedestrians from the “potential danger” of walking this path at night would be to lock one or both of the gates at dusk. The ipetition to which you give a link is written in language that is emotive, sensationalist and utterly misleading. It is designed to heighten the reader’s sense of dread. The view offered by the path at night is one of the sky. Lights along the path would pollute the view of the night sky not just from the path itself but from the whole eastern end of the park, one of the very few places in East Oxford from which it is possible to view the Perseids

How about solar lighting just along the path?

Lights would be wonderful. I work at Brookes and live on Southfield Road and often wish to cross this park in the dark.

This path is used by Headington girls school pupils Cheyney school pupils and Young Brooks Students by not lighting this there safety is being risked

Yes, just a few uplighters at ground level or something similar. Not lamposts or anything unsightly. There must be solutions available.

As a local resident I often use this path and it is difficult to see after dark. Just some solar lighting in the ground delineating the path would be a great help

As a local resident I often use the path to access London Road bus stops, but have stopped using it at night as it's much too dark to see where you're going.

I strongly support this petition for safety reasons. I am much more interested in human safety than I am worried about bats or light pollution.

Is it possible to have solar-powered lights which are also movement-sensitive, ie only alight when the path is in use?

The dual carriage way can be confusing as people cross at different points. Better to have a designated crossing which should be positioned near the park gate and the woodfarm bus stop.

11 years ago Featured

We regularly walk our dog in the park and I do the evening walk before my husband returns from work. I am particuarly uncomfortable during the dark evenings being a female walking in the park alone. Any extra lighting in the area at the top of the park would really help.

I am also in favour of lighting - it is unpleasant using the path at night. Am wary of light pollution though. Might ground level lights be a solution?

this path needs lighting. it could be small ground lights, but at the moment it is too treacherous to use at night and this seems crazy.

11 years ago Featured

I think this is a really worthwhile idea. Having grown up in Oxford, I frequently have walked along that path but have often chosen to take the longer route in the dark! It would be a convenience to many by installing lights!

yes