Everyone's entitled to their opinions, but anyone thinking the whole town is up in arms would be sadly mistaken. Those who don't like the new name have largely got over it by now.
And you know this because? Another highly scientific poll perhaps...? Or perhaps it's just your opinion.
Black Friday was a problem in several places last year, being a relatively new phenomenon causing sudden peaks in demand where they never used to exist. After last year's gridlock day people were predicting meltdown before and after Christmas and regularly since, which hasn't happened since the park and ride system has been put in place. Maybe they could tweak that process and direct everyone to Oxford Parkway to P&R!
And how much did all the palaver involved to avoid a repeat after Christmas last year cost? Park-and-ride, forests of signs, armies of traffic marshals and even a special traffic order... would Bicester Village have done half of it if Black Friday hadn't been, er, black? No chance, based on many years of previous problems after Christmas. Equally, no one ever predicts meltdown at any other time of the year, because there never has been meltdown at any other time of the year than post-Christmas or on Black Friday.
What's much more clear from that survey is that 50% of the people surveyed probably don't care what the station is called, otherwise they'd have bothered to voice their opinion.
Ask the whole of Bicester and I imagine that 50% is a fairly low estimate of the proportion of people who don't really care...
Presumably you'll now try and argue that nobody will listen to people who voice their opinion and respond to surveys? Well, if you don't take the opportunity to voice your opinion at the right time, decisions will be made and won't be undone for the minority who do so late...
Have you actually read this thread and taken in the points about Chiltern's so-called efforts at consultation or the amazing smoke and mirrors survey that still couldn't produce a majority in favour of calling the station Bicester 'Village'. Chiltern weren't bothered what anyone said to them at any stage, at the 'right time' or any other time - nor what was said in the local papers - because they had already made up this mind and all the 'consultation' and 'survey' were for was to provide a fig leaf for this.
It seems that this is just the latest focus of vague and undefined complaints about Bicester Village shopping centre.
If you lived anywhere near Bicester, you would be well aware that there is nothing vague or undefined when it comes to complaints about Bicester Village - most notably in regard to traffic congestion. What its next phase of expansion brings remains to be seen but with the number of shops increasing by a quarter and parking by another 500 spaces, it won't an easing of the pressure on roads in and around the town.
I've read and heard a lot about this name change and I don't get why people can get so upset about the name of a station. The local commuters know where the station is regardless of whether it's called Bicester Village, Bicester Town or Nestle Reebok Hovis London Road station.
There are a large amount of tourists for which English is not their first language who want to go by train to an outlet called Bicester Village, it makes perfect sense for a station next door to be then called Bicester Village as it avoids confusion with Bicester North station.
Chiltern, NR and other parties have pumped millions into providing a better service for Bicester with more services to Marylebone and future services to Oxford City Centre with trains off to the East a few years away... More trains coupled with past expensive Evergreen projects so they want to recuperate their money somehow and get bums on seats, creating a big market out of Marylebone for leisure travellers out of peak hours. Make it easier for travellers and less daunting by making the railway simpler to boost passenger numbers. This Bicester Village name is a good way of doing it. IT helps boost Bicester's local economy as well.
But the poor confused shoppers have been managing to make their way there via Bicester North or ye olde-fashioned Bicester Town for a very long time and in very large numbers. The big market has been there for years already, on the back of heavy marketing by the centre's owners in China and elsewhere, and it remains to be seen if a train to the doorstep will have some sort of transformative effect on custom, compared with a train almost to the doorstep and short bus trip, using a combined ticket, which doesn't appear to have been that much of a deterrent in the past.
Tourists somehow manage to make their way to the Cotswolds by train even though none of the stations have Cotswolds in the name. Perhaps GWR will now feel inspired by Chiltern's example and rename Moreton-in-Marsh (which already has station signs in Japanese) 'Cotswolds North' and Kemble 'Cotswolds South' - the locals will still know where they are, so that'll be okay, won't it...?
As for it boosting Bicester's economy, that's a source of much debate. Many staff commute as well and most of the shoppers go straight into their destination and straight out again afterwards, without spending a penny anywhere else in the town. And local people's perceptions of traffic problems, real or imagined, about Bicester Village, do nothing for other businesses in the town generally, as many people living nearby take their trade elsewhere, be that Oxford, Witney, Banbury or Aylesbury.
