Oxford United announce changes to bus services to home games
Oxford United fans will benefit from improved bus services to home games next season.
A new service, OX1, will pick up fans in Wantage, Grove, Marcham, and Abingdon, before travelling along Dunmore Road to the A34 serving a different part of Abingdon.
Rather than both OX3 buses starting in Carterton and traveling to Witney, one will now start in Burford and pick up Minster Lovell – the new OX4 route.
The OX4 will then join up with the OX3 in Witney, and both will leave slightly earlier than before.
The OX8 will now start from Chinnor before picking up in Thame, no longer pulling into Thornhill Park and Ride.
It will, however, pick up and drop off from the bus stops just outside on the A40 at Sandhills.
The club has announced the football special buses alongside Oxford Bus Company, Thames Travel, and Pulhams.
The new network will be in place for Championship home games next season.
The full list of routes is:
- OX1 Wantage Kingsgrove – Wantage Market Place – Grove – Marcham – Abingdon – North Abingdon.
- OX2 Didcot – Steventon – Drayton – Abingdon – Oxford Road Abingdon – Kassam
- OX3 Carterton – Brize Norton – Curbridge – Witney – Eynsham – Botley
- OX4 Burford – Minster Lovell – Witney – Eynsham – Botley
- OX5 Bicester
- OX7 Kidlington – Summertown – Marston – Headington – Cowley
- OX8 Chinnor – Thame – Wheatley – Sandhills (outside Thornhill only) – Risinghurst
The letter outlines how the club has used community feedback to create a vision that respects the stadium’s surroundings and explains how community-focused facilities and services can tackle societal needs in the area.
The stadium will help reduce NHS waiting lists and provide services to support mental health and physical wellbeing.
It will deliver up to 1,000 employment and apprenticeship opportunities, with 20 per cent of jobs created ringfenced for those living locally, to help address the county’s youth employment and hospitality labour shortages.
The letter also confirms the club have created an approved transport strategy following consultation by Thames Valley Police, Oxfordshire County Council Highways, Chiltern Railways, Oxford Bus Company and Stagecoach to promote trains, buses, cycling and walking. The strategy targets achieving 90 per cent of travel to the stadium via sustainable means.
A new health and wellbeing centre will improve access to healthcare, delivering thousands of NHS diagnostic appointments annually, and a proposed new pharmacy will replace the one closed in Sainsbury’s.
A community gym capable of supporting 250 people daily, plus an accessible public plaza and cafe, wellbeing gardens and walking routes linking to the Woodland Trust Wood at Stratfield Brake forms part of plans to boost physical and mental health provisions too.
The open letter reconfirms the club’s commitment to investing in Stratfield Brake’s sports pitches for five years, protecting vital grassroots clubs including Kidlington Youth FC and Gosford All Blacks.
It also details the climate benefits it will bring as the UK’s first all-electric stadium and a landmark Oxfordshire green development, powered by on-site renewables and 100 clean energy.
