Towards a Plan for Oxford City. [Second printing.]

Bookseller Notes

The pretext of this book, that 'Oxford's town-planning problem is unique', is one that anyone trying to drive around or park in the city can support.Central Oxford had become acutely congested with motor traffic in the 1920s and 1930s. When Dale first moved from Banbury to Oxford he practised from an office in Carfax, 'but the traffic there was shocking' - so he gave up his office and practised from home. In September 1941 Dale published a six-page pamphlet called Christ Church Mall: a Diversion in which he proposed a relief road skirting the south side of Christ Church Meadow along the bank of the River Thames to link Abingdon Road and Iffley Road to bypass High Street. In 1944 he expanded on his proposals in Towards a Plan for Oxford City, illustrated with some of his own watercolours. In it he reiterated his 'Christ Church Mall' road proposal and proposed extensive redevelopment of St. Clement's and St. Ebbes. In 1946 the County Borough of Oxford commissioned Thomas Sharp to make proposals to relieve Oxford's traffic and re-plan parts of the city. In 1948 Sharp published his report as a book, Oxford Replanned. Neither Dale's road, nor the 'Merton Mall' subsequently proposed to address the problem by Thomas Sharp, who considered Dale's too indirect, was ever built.