Cycle Path Consultation Offers Four Identical Lines

"I have looked at all four options and I would like to formally support the orange one, because orange is the only one I can see from the kitchen," said a woman in Haddenham who has laminated the consultation map and attached it to her fridge with a magnet shaped like a cat.

The survey invites people who walk, cycle or wheel between Haddenham and Thame to express a preference between Option A, which is a line, Option B, which is the same line with a gentle wobble in it where a hedge used to be, Option C, which is Option A rendered in blue, and Option D, which is described as "no change at present" and has, according to everyone who has opened it, the quiet confidence of an option that already knows how this ends. Halloween has not helped. The map has been passed around at three separate front doors this week by people holding buckets, and at least one household has drawn a bat on it.

"I ride that road most evenings and I will take any of them, honestly, even the blue one," said a man who does the Thame run in a pumpkin costume from now until the end of the month, on the grounds that drivers give him more room. "The only thing I'd ask is that whichever line wins, somebody tells the hedge."