Essay by Eric Worrall
First published JoNova; Imagine if your power mad politicians liked Covid Lockdowns so much, they wanted to continue them indefinitely. This is going to be trialled in Oxfordshire in Britain.
Oxfordshire County Council Pass Climate Lockdown ‘trial’ to Begin in 2024
Oxfordshire County Council yesterday approved plans to lock residents into one of six zones to ‘save the planet’ from global warming. The latest stage in the ’15 minute city’ agenda is to place electronic gates on key roads in and out of the city, confining residents to their own neighbourhoods.
Under the new scheme if residents want to leave their zone they will need permission from the Council who gets to decide who is worthy of freedom and who isn’t. Under the new scheme residents will be allowed to leave their zone a maximum of 100 days per year, but in order to even gain this every resident will have to register their car details with the council who will then track their movements via smart cameras round the city.
Communism will make the weather better.
Oxfordshire County Council, which is run by Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party, secretly decided to divide-up the city of Oxford into six ‘15 minute’ districts in 2021 soon after they were elected to office. None of the councillors declared their intention of imprisoning local residents in their manifestos of course, preferring to make vague claims about how they will ‘improve the environment’ instead.
Every resident will be required to register their car with the County Council who will then monitor how many times they leave their district via number plate recognition cameras. And don’t think you can beat the system if you’re a two car household. Those two cars will be counted as one meaning you will have to divide up the journeys between yourselves. 2 cars 50 journeys each; 3 cars 33 journeys each and so on.
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Read more: https://www.visionnews.online/post/oxfordshire-county-council-pass-climate-lockdown-trial-to-begin-in-2024
This story is so crazy, I wanted corroboration. This is the same story published in the Oxford Mail;
Traffic filters will divide city into six “15 minute” neighbourhoods, agrees highways councillor
25th October
ROAD blocks stopping most motorists from driving through Oxford city centre will divide the city into six “15 minute” neighbourhoods, a county council travel chief has said.
And he insisted the controversial plan would go ahead whether people liked it or not.
Duncan Enright, Oxfordshire County Council’s cabinet member for travel and development strategy, explained the authority’s traffic filter proposals in an interview in The Sunday Times.
He said the filters would turn Oxford into “a 15-minute city” with local services within a small walking radius.
…
People can drive freely around their own neighbourhood and can apply for a permit to drive through the filters, and into other neighbourhoods, for up to 100 days per year. This equates to an average of two days per week.
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Read more: https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/23073992.traffic-filters-will-divide-city-six-15-minute-neighbourhoods-agrees-highways-councillor/
Oxfordshire is the home of the University of Oxford, one of Britain’s premier learning institutions.
Communist states like the Soviet Union and China seem to love movement restrictions and internal passports. In my opinion Britain has been edging closer to naked communism for at least half a century, so I guess it was inevitable that an attempt would be made at some point to introduce Chinese style movement restrictions on British people. In my opinion the climate claims are just an excuse, an attempt to deflect criticism of their authoritarianism.
I would love to write that the University of Oxford is up in arms, that Oxford academics are outraged at this attempt to restrict people’s freedom, but so far I have not discovered one utterance of public outrage from university academics.
For almost a thousand years the University of Oxford stood as a beacon of intellectual freedom. A number of leading Oxford intellectuals were hanged or otherwise persecuted over the centuries, because of their resistance to authoritarianism. So it seems incredibly sad that the inheritors of that proud tradition seem so willing to turn their backs on those freedoms their predecessors sometimes laid down their lives to defend.
Update (EW): The “15 Minute City” concept mentioned by Councillor Duncan Enright is intimately tied to sustainability and climate goals. From Introducing the “15-Minute City”: Sustainability, Resilience and Place Identity in Future Post-Pandemic Cities :-
“… The success of this concept, as it has been shown in the city of Paris under the leadership of Mayor Anne Hidalgo, has been hailed as a potent urban planning concept that will lead to an economic boost, while bringing about social cohesion and interaction and help create sustainable ecosystems in cities, more so after the experiences of COVID-19 and associated containment measures. While some of the features of the “15-Minute City” concept had been temporarily adopted in different cities after the impacts of COVID-19, its adoption in long-term planning would result in a higher quality of life as proximity to basic services would help in saving time wasted in traffic, thus promoting sustainable mobility [35]. This will aid in efforts to reduce emissions as envisioned in the Paris agreement and promote higher cultural outputs, amongst others. For instance, by re-thinking the transportation system to create more biking and walkable streets, the challenges of private car ownership will be somehow addressed as they will be reduced as more people embrace biking culture. In addition, as expressed by Reimer [36], the adoption of the “15-Minute City” concept will also open gateways for more novel digital innovations such as bike-sharing technologies that would increase the high livability experiences of urban residents. For instance, as is expressed by Gehl [37], the re-thinking of cities to facilitate walkability and cycling would, in turn, inspire the creation of parks, squares and public places within neighborhoods, and by doing so, it would help to bridge the social inequality in accessing such facilities, which are not always available for everyone in a car-dependent city. …”
Balkanising cities into smaller districts, like the districts in “The Hunger Games”, will in my opinion cause substantial economic damage, and reduce social contact and cooperation between different regions of cities which have been manipulated in this way. The whole point of living in a city, for people who choose to do so, is the broad range of economic and social opportunities and resources offered by city life. But as they’ve said many times, traditional concepts of prosperity and economic growth are not the core goals of deep greens.
This does look like a parody of power mad greens. Peons have no rights they are obliged to respect.
Those AI generated pictures are truly sinister.
Intellectual freedoms must be held within CC Orthodoxy. Physical Freedoms will be limited to 15 minute intervals
What’s truly sinister is what these psychos are trying to implement!
We’ll all be in prison – we’ll just get a “pass” a few times each month, if they get their way.
If we ALLOW them to have their way.
I think I woke up on the wrong planet this morning. This is the most dystopian idea I’ve ever encountered. Can someone please direct me back to planet Earth?
Go right at the first road block and drive like hell.
I thought it was…
Second Roadblock to the right and straight on till mourning
Everyone is allowed to leave their neighbourhood – apart from the 2 days every week through the city centre- via the ring road and then into the other area.
they just want people to stop driving through the centre of town on the way to somewhere else.
Seems a bizarre choice for a city of only 160,000. The article refers to the Oxfordshire County which is a different body with no jurisdiction over the city
Obviously you have no idea how English councils are arranged. Oxfordshire County Council are the Highway Authority and have control of all non-strategic roads in the county and city.
University terms are 8 weeks in Oxford, therefore their students will be out of the city areas for 27 weeks, will they be penalised? What about people who work at John Radcliffe trauma hospital on the outskirts of the city? Hospital visitors? Workers elsewhere in the city, including shop workers and hospitality. This is poorly thought out to say the least.
I predict an enormouse increase in car-rental companies just outside their city limits! Especially for ar rental plans which do not require the vehicle to be returned to base!
Look at the ever-growing “emissions” zone in London. Not a lot of protests.
Ultra Low Emission Zone will be expanded London-wide
It is quite simply a regressive tax, hurting the poor and the low-paid the most, yet there’s not much in the way of outrage. I know a commuter in outer London whose spouse no longer takes the car to meet them at the local railway station on a rainy day, because they live outside the emissions zone and the station is inside. The commuter has to walk the half-mile in all weather. They are outraged at the pettiness and futility of it all, because they know that the entire scheme is simply a regressive tax and has no useful purpose, but they keep their outrage among friends, ie. they don’t organise big protests or flood social media or hammer their MP. Like most citizens, their natural course is to put up with things while they can. When the Ulez (Ultra-Low Emissions Zone) expands to include their home, they will have to buy a new expensive car or move home.
Now I agree that having to walk half a mile in pouring rain occasionally is not that big a deal, but really that’s the point. The marxist Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is simply tightening the screws bit by bit. It’s the death of a thousand cuts for citizens.
Sadiq Khan’s Ulez expansion punishes the poorest
Of course these restrictions only apply to the little people. The masters have no restrictions at all.
Is right wing media any better than left wing media?
Or are all our media distorting the facts to earn money?
Geez Mark, you were once one of the more analytical and acerbic minds on WUWT but now just see to unquestioningly regurgitate right wing media.
Where did he even come close to mentioning media at all, let alone any wing of it? If his quote
came from right wing media, that doesn’t make the left wing media look very good.
There is no right wing media.
Just because I don’t love Putin the way you do, you assume I just regurgitate right wing propaganda.
There you go again, adopting left wing media tactics and blatantly lying about me. I have explained to you as patiently as I can that I like Putin no more than I like Zelensky.
Who I do despise, however, is the Biden administration for provoking a war to cover for the family crime syndicate’s corruption.
Is right wing media any better than left wing media?
Depends. What do you want to hear?
If you want to here a bunch of people tell you the “correct” answer, then you want some Left Wing. If you want people to ask you the “correct” questions, then Right.
Left and Right isn’t just a casual choice you make each morning while selecting your current pronouns, it is directly driven by how your mind addresses problems and solutions.
The Left – typically – feel that everything could be better for everyone if only the correct people were in charge. Once the correct people are in charge the correct solutions can be put in place (for everyone) everything will be fixed. If you disagree then you are WRONG and must be stopped from ruining everything. Cause you are wrong.
The Right – typically – wants to be left alone to do what is best for them and their loved ones. Having you have ‘best’ is not something they are against, but only provided your ‘best’ does not directly affect their loved ones. They accept there is no universal right answer, only the answers that CURRENTLY work for them. VHS was once cool, then DVDs came along, now Blu-Ray, now streaming. Just cause I once owned a VHS does not mean I can’t run a Blu-Ray. Things change and a Right will constantly pick and choose.
(Conservative Advantage – look it up, it is real)
So Left Media will tell their consumers what the answer is, cause wrong answers cause anger.
Right Media will question things for their consumers, because there may be a better answer and/or the current answer leaves them worse off.
Which is worse? Consume what you want. Free market.
Or are all our media distorting the facts to earn money?
Duh! Media is a business. Not a charity. Despite what they like to tell their consumers private Media has no real obligation to tell the truth and the truth is not some absolute right that must be spread via the hands of the media.
The media – with the possible exception of state owned media under a charter – is NOT required to tell you the truth. They are required to develop enough trust in their consumers that the consumers keep coming back to them. Know your market. If your market is filled with people who believe the moon is made of cheese, then you make sure you publish stories about the best wine and crackers to eat moon cheese with.
The Media can say what they want. They are a business.
What they – in my opinion at least – should not be able to do is block opposing discussion and become a single source. Mock opposing discussion. Debate (and then mock) opposing discussion. But never deny it or prevent people.
There are lots of protest’s about ULEZ, not that the MSM let any of us know about them.
I live in Dartford, the ULEZ zone extends to Bexley, a London ‘Borough’ which, to be fair, will increase the value of a house by probably 10% – 20%. It’s border is within half a mile from my house.
As I understand it, ULEZ is designed to penalise the crappy old vehicles, none of us want on the roads, spewing choking clouds of diesel smoke (smoke, not emissions) into the air. Our MOT system (an annual check on cars over 3 years old for road worthiness) should condemn these vehicles but they don’t.
Newer vehicles from 2015 or so constructed to European regulations are exempt, so the future of motoring is not really threatened from that perspective. And I’ll say that from a practical perspective, most European regulations are entirely sensible. Labelling a bag of peanuts as a ‘product that may contain nut residue’ is not an EU imperative, it’s stupid, lazy manufacturers or distributors who don’t understand what they are making and what the laws are who make these ridiculous statements.
I haven’t looked into the Oxford system and probably won’t as I haven’t been in Oxford for the last 15 years or so, but I suspect our right wing media is being as sensationalist about left wing political activities as the left are about right wing political activities.
I get why we make political issues about seemingly excessive political interventions but, if any community in the world needs to analyse the actual substance of the accusations, it needs to be this sceptical community.
I’m not sceptical about climate change issues – I’m sceptical of everything, including our right wing media. They are as bad as left wing media.
“As I understand it, ULEZ is designed to penalise the crappy old vehicles, none of us want on the roads, spewing choking clouds of diesel smoke (smoke, not emissions) into the air.“. The information and numbers in the articles I linked do not support this assertion.
“Our MOT system (an annual check on cars over 3 years old for road worthiness) should condemn these vehicles but they don’t.“. The answer is to improve the MOT, not penalise citizens.
I read the link. Sounds like London’s version of “cash for clunkers”.
Not really, as no one is paid to take their vehicles off the road. We had a similar scheme as cash for clunkers in the UK some years ago.
In America the unconstitutional “Cash For Clunkers” law eliminated many cheap cars from the market, which raised the price of all automobiles and made it more difficult for the poor to own a car.
Why is it unconstitutional ? seems a baseless kneejerk claim
Is there a clunkers clause.
of course it only eliminated cars under 25 years old with larger engines/poor fuel consumption and whom the owners wanted to sell for scrap
Hundred of similar cars werent eleigible if they had 4 cyl engines instead of sixes or v8s
It was merely a stimulous program , but not well thought out as it was very short term before they ran out of money
And where in the Constitution is the national government authorized to “stimulous” [sic] anything?
“The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
The Supreme Court has emphasized the sweeping character of this power by saying from time to time that it reaches every subject that it is exhaustive or that it embraces every conceivable power of taxation.
its was a program appropriated by Congress at the time, and thus fully legal and constitutional
General welfare is *NOT* individual welfare. I sincerely hope out current originalist SCOTUS will continue to make this distinction in the future. Cash for clunkers helped some individuals and hurt many others who no longer had access to cheaper transportation. I.e. it was a case of *individual* welfare, not general welfare.
Cash for clunkers was most definitely not legal or constitutional. Using your logic *anything* Congress appropriates is legal and constitutional – it could even be actual segregation of the races paid for by the national government financed through a special, uniform “Duties, Imposts, and Excises”.
Bravo, Tim Gorman, exactly right.
– Thomas Jefferson
Duker,
unfortunately for tyrants, the Constitution gives the national government certain Enumerated Powers – and those only. There is no national power to Tax As Much As We Want For Whatever We Want. This is spelled out in the Constitution.
—
Amendment 10 – Powers Retained by the States and the People (ratified December 15, 1791)
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
If as you and the rest of the far left wish to believe, that the general welfare clause grants the congress the power to do anything that it believes will advance the general welfare, then there was never a need for the rest of the constitution, because that clause grants congress unlimited power.
The reality is that the general welfare clause merely explains why the actual powers were granted.
Just because the supreme court is willing to bastardize the constitution in order to placate the left wing passions of the day doesn’t mean the power was ever there.
So far Duker has said that Cash for Clunkers was legal because it was a tax (and all taxes are legal), and also that it was a “stimulous” [sic]. But it seems to me that a stimulus is the opposite of a tax. A tax is the government taking something of value from me; a stimulus is the government giving something of value to me.
So a stimulus is an anti-tax. And if all taxes are legal, than all government stimuli are automatically, by the same logic, illegal.
Of course putting sand in the engine of a working vehicle is not stimulating anything, and a voluntary program is not a tax. So he is wrong on both of his conflicting theories.
Cash for Clunkers was a purchase: your car for this money. Now let’s see our imaginative friend find a clause in the Constitution that allows the national government to buy things of value and destroy them.
Reminds me of Hillary declaring that she couldn’t be held responsible for every under capitalized company in the country, when reporters asked her about the possibility of many companies failing when they couldn’t handle the new taxes that were being proposed by the Obama regime.
I don’t think HotScot deserves a -11 for saying that all media is untrustworthy. Because that’s an obvious Truth. Furthermore overwrought stories that exaggerate the case from a conservative’s perspective are counterproductive, discrediting WUWT and hurting our prospects of persuading reasonable people.
There’s enough outrageous stuff already without the need to stretch the truth. If this is being proposed as a “climate lockdown” by the authorities promulgating it, then I’ll stand corrected.
If complaining about the media was the only thing HotScot had written about, he wouldn’t have gotten a single down vote.
I posted about ULEZ and mentioned the media distortion. What else did you take from it?
I saw you ranting about things that don’t exist, except in the minds of the left.
Next we are going to outlaw any computer that’s more than 5 years old.
“Newer vehicles from 2015 or so constructed to European regulations are exempt, so the future of motoring is not really threatened from that perspective. And I’ll say that from a practical perspective, most European regulations are entirely sensible.”
I live about 400 miles away from London and I know nothing about the London ULEZ but I do know something about the scheme in Germany. In Germany you have to buy an emission sticker if you want to take your car into one of their zones. Currently it costs £17 to buy one of these stickers. Once you have bought one it lasts as long as your car. You don’t have to buy one every year. But vehicles constructed from 2015 are certainly not exempt.
The annual MOT test is just fine. A vehicle with a valid MOT certificate does not pollute. The problem is with some venal MOT testers.
Either walk to work, or take the bus.
If that doesn’t work for you, tough.
Eat your bug, own nothing, be happy.
“Mum! My friend is drunk and I am not letting them drive me home. Can you come and get me?”
“Sorry Dear, already been out the compound twice this week. Can you wait till Tuesday?”
Think outside the box, Mark. Life is not just going to our government assigned job for your Basic Wage.
I’m getting the impression that there are a lot of people out there who don’t recognize sarcasm when they see it.
Mark, if you’re saying it I just assume it’s sarcasm. As you should do with me 🙂
Communism has so many great ideas. NOT.
This council has gone bonkers .
Power crazy ,no council in any democratic country has the power to control peoples movement in or out of any city .
Get some constitutional lawyers to see what a council can and cannot do .
In New Zealand our socialist ( communist ? } government are going to take over all water services from councils forming mega monolithic entities and appointing Co government representatives from our Maori population.
The government passed the law under urgency and the passed another law to Entrench the new law .
Entrenchment means that it would take a 60% majority in either our parliament or in a referendum to change this law .
Only this weekend the government has backed down and reversed this entrenchment provision because constitutional lawyers have said this is unconstitutional and that governments cannot use this law in this way .
Democracy does not work like that, a governments can not enshrine laws to stop the next government from changing them .
“Democracy does not work like that…”
A Democracy, as a distinct form of government, does not work. Not for very long, anyway.
A Republic, as a distinct form of government, is the form of most “Western” governments.
The leftists want the Republics to devolve into Democracy’s. The reason? The Democracy’s will fail, quickly, and turn into Tyranny’s.
The end goal of the Leftist’s is to bring about a Communist Utopia, Tyranny.
I wish we would stop conflating Democracy with Republic.
Do you have these hare brained ideas often ?
There is only two types of democracy – representative or direct. Swiss have both with representatives deciding most issues and referendums for direct decision making
Nothing to do with ‘republics’ as many are monarchy’s or lower levels like states, provinces or most common of all municipal areas.
Silly silly claims
No 3 water laws have been passed that take councils water assets – they remain in public control.
Somme areas already have these separate structures to combine multiple councils water and sewage systems- Wellington Water even runs things in parts of rural Wairarapa
The legislation is merely going through the legislation process which is when flaws can be pointed out
Remember when the local airports were taken from council control and sold !
I agree with your firs post above .Yes SMC has got that wrong .
I do not agree with your post titled “Silly silly claims ”
If you are from New Zealand you should know better.
The EX Mayor of Auckland Phil Goff got this right when he said that there is a water entity working well covering most of the Auckland area of one of the proposed new entities .
It is called Water Care ,why does the government want to take take control .
We as rate payers in rural areas have paid for these water assets and the government is interfering with councils assets which they have no right to do .
If there really is a problem with water ( there is not ) our regional councils could be given the authority to work with councils to upgrade facilities as necessary.
Regional councils are in charge of rivers and lakes and flood control .
The only reason for 3 waters is for the government to exert more and more control and to appoint iwi (Maori ) to the boards .
Three Waters is leading us down the road to Communism.
And how was Watercare created …but by ‘taking’ the water and sewage assets of 7 or 8 councils combining them into one with an appointed board but with 100% ownership of the council. happened many many time in Auckland as the original system was ‘owned by’ Auckland and Suburbs Drainage board from 1910 and Auckland City Council a and was ‘taken by the ;later Auckland regional Council
Which is exactly what the government is doing nationwide. They have gone too far but the principle is the same.
Boards are what underlies the capitalist system, they dont own the business for a listed company, but they have semi direct control through the executives
For heavens sake the water and sewage is already state socialism as they are public owned entities but cant make a profit .
You dont have a clue what you are talking about
So you say I don’t have a clue .
When councils are running their water and sewage schemes competently what right has the government to force councils to give these assets away to monolithic enterprises that we as rate payers can have no over-site or control .
We all ready have Regional Councils that would be perfectly capable of running joint operations.
We can vote for regional councils but these new entities will have appointed members and unelected Maori representatives.
Also there are a lot of rural water schemes that the users have paid for and hold shares .
The government wants to take over those as well .
There was one incident in Hawks Bay where some wells became contaminated and this government is saying that that will not happen with these new entities .
I would point out that we have a NZ Transport Ministry that does all the maintenance on our main highways and this year the highways were falling into disrepair that badly that the ministry had to pay for a lot of damage to tyres
.So how can any arm of government promise that water problems will not happen in the future .
This is all about putting unelected Maori representatives onto these entities for some vague promise under the Treaty of Waitangi which was signed in 1840 between Maori tribes and the British Crown .
Somme areas already have these
Yes, but not all of use live in France…
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.
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I’ll get my coat.
Marx said regligion is the opiate of the masses. That comment of course wasn’t about communism other than as a factoid helpful to his other beliefs. I don’t agree with his other beliefs but I do agree with this one.
Marx said, “Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”
Marx was a narcissist and a grifter. This metaphor, and much of his philosophy, was used to justify his useless existence and minimize the existence of those around him. It is nothing more than an attempt to dehumanize people.
SMC,
What ever do you mean!? Communism works great for ants and termites and bees; especially the colony queen!
To make it work properly for humans you just have to educate them to the level of the insect workers; that is the high mark that Western educators are attempting to achieve!
In speaking of Marx, one should never forget to acknowledge his world class misogyny. Perhaps that is why when his philosophy is instituted women and children suffer the most!
You should review Poe’s Law.
.
Communism does have many great ideas, problem is no-one ever gets to know what they are
It has great ideas for dehumanizing and destroying humanity. Communism is a plague on the world.
You misspelled “slavery.”
Not a UK law expert, but I did a quick search and found nothing that would grant the city authority to so restrict vehicular travel. I expect it will be challenged in court. The UK COVID 19 lockdown legislation plainly does NOT apply.
This proposal would be unconstitutional in the US via the 1st and 14th amendments.
And the Second Amendment.
The UK doesn’t have a Bill of Rights, much less a Second Amendment.
The US Constitution is, I understand, founded on the Magna Carta. An entirely sensible document which is no longer a legal precedent in the UK.
The US Constitution is under relentless attack from the left which makes me wonder why the Magna Carta evolved into a far more fluid constitution (small ‘c’) which rolls with the punches.
It seems to me that, as with any statutory document written into stone, it’s subject to legal challenge as society evolves.
On that basis I think the 2nd amendment is more important than the 1st Amendment.
The Magna Carta is one of the inspirations for the US Constitution.
The US Constitution is under relentless attack because it doesn’t allow for a permanent elite class of people. One of the many things the Leftists have done is to try and reinterpret and conflate words and ideas to render the Constitution meaningless. A classic example is conflating the two distinct types of government Democracy and Republic. You are watching the application of Critical Theory when the Leftists do this.
The US Constitution is not set in stone. There are mechanisms to change/amend or even rewrite the Constitution, see Article V.
The First Amendment is the most critical. The Second Amendment is there to protect the First,
The Bill of Rights of 1689 was a more important inspiration. That and the Founder’s interpretation of separation of powers in UK constitutional practice.
Of course it does! Bill of Rights 1689. After the Glorious Revolution.
Many civil rights in the UK are grounded in Common Law and judicial precedent, not a written constitution. As a for instance the Somerset case of 1772. The nature of the case and its force has been argued over, but it is a judgment about civil rights based on the Common Law. You can have a civil right in the UK without it being embodied in legislation.
The 1689 Bill of Rights, and not Magna Carta, was a lot of the inspiration for the US Constitution.
I wouldn’t jump the gun on the unconstitutionality of arbitrary lock downs. Rights that are not enumerated in the Bill of Rights are incorporated under the 14th Amendment’s “due process of law” clause but in an inconsistent way. The right to marry is incorporated but the right of free association has not, nor has any economic right been incorporated that was not subsequently de-incorporated like the right to contract.
Interstate travel has been acknowledged but intrastate travel has not. The right to travel interstate was accepted by the Supreme Court in an otherwise horrible ruling that effectively eliminated an entire clause of the 14th Amendment – the “Privileges or Immunities” clause.
While I completely agree with you that there is a right to travel and a right to be free from forced restraint of action, I don’t know that this Supreme Court would uphold these rights and if the court is packed, all rights might disappear.
“found nothing that would grant the city authority to so restrict vehicular travel”
Of course cities can restrict travel, and very frequently do. It basically just blocks off certain streets with bollards. A conventional traffic management scheme, as in most older cities, and nothing whatever to do with climate.
In your “mind”, the ability to temporarily block a road for a festival or road work, is the equivalent to requiring people to stay in their neighborhood unless they get permission from government to leave?
That is arrant nonsense. There are no restrictions on personal movement. There are restrictions on vehicular movement, such as you will find in any European city. We have plenty in Melbourne, Australia.
Not often I have to half agree with Nick Stokes but they do have the ability to restrict the method of travel in many cities. Hence pedestrian zones in city centers. Especially when everybody tacitly accepts that congestion is a serious problem.
However, I can’t see that restricting citizens to a frequency quota would be considered supportable, neither practicably nor economically nor legally nor morally.
I too agree with Nick’s take on this one – councils all around the world (including the 25k ratepayers one I live in) place vehicular access restrictions in zones around the older parts of their central towns / cities.
As mine does.
You can freely access the non-congestion zone by foot, bus, bike, taxi, whatever – we just can’t drive our cars in there.
And I’m the first to admit that it makes for a much more pleasant footpath or beer garden dining experience.
As for our council’s declared “Climate Emergency” however –
I call bullshit on that one.
There’s a qualitative difference between blocking the occasional, pedestrianised street and splitting an entire city into rightly controlled zones that can only be accessed by a special permit. Manchester, as an example, has several of the former. No town or city in the country has any example of the latter, <i>because it’s a minumentally stupid idea</i>.
I don’t know whether it is a good scheme. But it has nothing to do with climate. It is a response to a critical traffic congestion issue.
They don’t have to say the word “climate” for it to be about climate change policies. The proposals were crafted under the umbrella of “sustainable transport”, which is a euphemism employed for anything that is meant to “fight” climate change. If you think this isn’t meant to be teh outcome of the government’s overall sustainability and environmental governance policy, then you’re not paying attention.
And y es, the policy is stupid. It’s breathtakingly stupid. They aren’t merely preventing people transiting from their “zone” to the city centre, they’re preventing them from traversing between “zones” as well.
Shut up Nick. You know as much about local UK laws and issues as you do about climate science.
Local councils in the UK have certain rights to do what they want within a framework of national legislation.
We moved from centralised, Westminster authority over basically everything in the 60’s and 70’s to more devolved local power in the following decades. It’s more complicated than that but I’m not going into any of it here.
The argument was rightly made that Westminster could’t possibly understand what was going on in rural Oxford or Cambridge so local councils should have more control over the circumstances in their regions.
A bit like it’s accepted that US states are entities unto themselves within a national framework. Except we are talking millions of people in Texas Vs. a few hundred thousand in Oxfordshire.
Then Scotland, Wales and NI were awarded devolved government in the 90’s, and since then local English councils have treated their regions as their own personal fiefdoms. Everything is based on a ‘London’ model – A city of millions of people (London) is rightly concerned about air quality, so of course a rural city of a few hundred thousand should have the right to strangle traffic, whilst public transport is woeful even by London standards as a major conurbation, in a futile and deceptive excuse as a power grab by local officials who are no more qualified than I am to run a national profit centre, on the basis of air quality.
Local councillors are mad with power. This will seem a tad remote but, I despised Trump when he ran in 2016 because of media hype. However, I recognised what he was, a businessman running a business organisation, the United States of America, a local profit centre in global terms. I changed my mind very quickly. He ran America as a business, not an imperial hegemony.
In contrast we have Devolved governments, not just in Scotland, Wales and NI, but in major cities with their Mayors now running them to their personal desires, not least the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who is running the city as his personal fiefdom, and considering his Islamic heritage and his left wing predisposition, the outcome is not surprising.
Sadiq covertly condemns car drivers; has introduced innumerable cycle schemes in the city; is a trans, rainbow advocate, as woke as they come; and a dyed in the wool climate fanatic – yet has at least four gas guzzling Range Rovers for his motorcade across London whenever he see’s fit, and his regular jet powered excursions overseas. His history as a human rights lawyer extends to fleecing the taxpayer for every penny he could get, as most human rights lawyers seem to do (and I accept there are some good ones out there).
Given a change in political wind, he, and all the other woke local authority leaders would change in an instant rather than resign.
I used to believe that the route of an American style Constitution was sensible for any functional society however, it’s recently been revealed even that is worthless against political chicanery.
I don’t agree with antifa, but I’m beginning to understand why they see anarchy as the way forward. Yes they are Marxist’s, I get that. That’s not the point I’m making.
The irony about “antifa” (short for “anti-fascist”) is that they actually promote precisely what they claim to be “against.”
Very true – you as so far from being a UK law expert and even more so on Highway Law. Highway Authorities are able to restrict vehicular traffic on roads that fall under their jurisdiction.
cant see anny reference to this on search engines so maybe a hoax story?
Either that or possibly super cereal.
https://letstalk.oxfordshire.gov.uk/traffic-filters-2022
From that site:
“Traffic filters are designed to reduce traffic levels across the city, making bus journeys quicker and more reliable and walking and cycling safer and more attractive. When they are operating, private cars will not be allowed through without a permit. All other vehicles including buses, coaches, taxis, vans, mopeds, motorbikes and HGVs will be allowed at all times. Residents in Oxford and some areas just outside the city will be able to apply for a permit allowing them to drive through the traffic filters on up to 100 days per year.”
Nothing whatever about climate.
Do a Google search for “Oxford travel restrictions” and you will find numerous references.
I have actually encountered this scheme. It is not a “climate lockdown”. It is a conventional traffic control scheme in a congested city. People wanted to keep local residential streets free of through traffic. Of course, not everyone likes it.
For once, I agree with Nick. Nowhere in the article does it mention climate. Darren Birks is a conspiracy theorist idiot who is taking this way too out of context. Endorsement of this article is a disgrace to the climate realist community. This turns away people who think independently. I want to refer this to my friends but its pieces like these that make me reluctant to do so.
https://www.mdpi.com/2624-6511/4/1/6
That academic article has nothing to do with this Oxford scheme. I know the scheme very well. My son lives in Oxford, and has bollards at one end of his street. It is entirely to do with the problem of managing traffic in a busy city with ancient narrow streets, and nothing whatever to do with climate.
The sooner you join your son in Oxford the better off Australia will be .
By British standards Oxford has remarkably wide streets.
The photograph is of Oxford city centre.
As soon as I got to the sentence “…and that of building safer, more resilient, sustainable and inclusive cities, as depicted in the Sustainable Development Goal 11 of the United Nations…” it was pretty obvious where they were going with this.
Klaus Schwab, Bill Gates and Larry Fink are gonna love this.
From the article:
“Oxfordshire County Council yesterday approved plans to lock residents into one of six zones to ‘save the planet’ from global warming.”
Also from the article
“A single person’s life will be at the mercy of Communists in central office, dictating the same type of draconian rules we had to avert the last crisis, a mild flu virus so deadly 80% of people didn’t even know they had it. “
As Walter says above, Birks is a conspiracy theorist idiot. You won’t find and of that in the more sober account in the Oxford mail.
Today’s conspiracy theory is tomorrow’s news.
This can’t be real. No citizen would accept this.
Oh yes it is real. See my comment December 4, 2022 11:39 am ‘Reply to JohnC’.
When is the Oxfordshire County Council up for reelection?
May 2023
This can’t be real. ... Yes it is !!! https://letstalk.oxfordshire.gov.uk/traffic-filters-2022
No citizen would accept this.… Yes, the majority will (see what happened in covid, see what happened after 9/11 ) get the terror story right & the sheeple will capitulate.
More confirmation for me that University study is NOT the best way to advance your education. To think that our old family home city of Oxford intends to promote this appalling circumvention of personal freedom just emphasises the point. Mao would be proud of these presumably-elected morons! Have they become so used to seeing the city traffic at a complete standstill that they wish to enforce a never-ending repetition of that?
Why the shock horror surprise – it’s what Electric Cars were/are all about.
They’ll be perfectly able to divide the entire country into x-minute zones , be able to do so remotely, in real time and enforce it remotely. In real time.
what is not to like
https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/23073992.traffic-filters-will-divide-city-six-15-minute-neighbourhoods-agrees-highways-councillor
So what happens if people don’t comply? Do they hand out fines, or are they just hoping that people will abide by the restrictions?
In Canada if you support the wrong thing, they freeze your assets and make it impossible to do business or even buy food and pay rent.
Yes, fines – which then become a nice little earner for the Council.
That is truly bonkers.
I won’t say it can’t happen here, but, thank God, Americans are contentious and heavily armed.
Remember in the years following WW II how often the mantra was trotted out ‘Just think, if we hadn’t won the war you’d all be speaking German by now’?
One year away from ‘Papers?’
And remember it’s not a conspiracy if they tell you they’re going to do it.
This will work a treat with the Oxford university types until a pipe gets blocked up somewhere and the plumber’s response will be “can’t fix it until next month mate, run out of car journeys for me work van.
it was the academic fools that world that has undermined democracy and created these controls, but it will be the working class that stops the BS because they can’t limit themselves to 15 minutes around the centre of town and earn their living. Rather like at the moment when motorists are starting to drag climate fools off the road because the police won’t do their job.
We are still working towards peak insanity. it is the democracies that have largely created the wealthy world we live in where there is money for foreign aid, help for the poor etc. This will dry up completely when we are shut down by our own quislings. At which point, light may dawn even on those closed minds.
This wouldn’t be tolerated in America.
I sure hope that you’re right but seeing rampant criminality with no bystanders interfering, I’m skeptical.
I don’t even think this would work in many large blue cities….take Baltimore for instance, as it is the closest to me. Dirt bikes are illegal in Baltimore, and yet there are thousands of bikes ridden by thousands of teens and young adults. Despite the fact that they are illegal to ride on public streets, riders do so all of the time and few if any get caught. They ride where they want and when they want. Lots of complaints, but policing in these blue cities is poor to non-existent at times.
I can just see it now – if Baltimore were to institute such a plan, many if not most residents would simply go about their business and drive wherever the heck they wanted to go. Unless there was a physical blockade cordoning off certain streets, it would not work.
I can guarantee this won’t happen
Frankly, I don’t believe this tall tale. Firstly : How can a council decision, properly conducted, ever be secret?
It is probably all just a private discussion between a few like-minded fanatic councilors.
Andy Espersen.
Councillors in Britain are allowed to conduct closed sessions, if they believe that public knowledge of the discussion would be detrimental to the interests of ratepayers. For example when discussing legal action which has been taken against the council.
Obviously councillors have to justify such secrecy to voters.
But there doesn’t appear to be any secret about what Oxfordshire want to do.
In England there are two council systems. One is where the councillors sit on committees holding meetings in public and vote on proposals. The other is a cabinet system which effectively makes the majority of the councillors redundant as the Cabinet members make the decisions one their own, not even voted for by the Cabinet. And Oxford use this system.
Oxgulag?
Gulagford?
Oxford City Council and Oxfordshire County Council are mixed up here. The City Council covers the “dreaming spires and lost causes” part (which is obviously still dreaming and lost), ~140,000 population, Oxfordshire County is the surrounding area, ~600,000. When I worked at Oxford City Planning (1971 – 74) we had some workable ideas, such as out-of-town parking, not free but secure, price included bus ride into the centre on bus-only lanes. Unwise to argue with those big red double-deckers anyway. The 1 lane/2 lane “tidal wave” bollard moving system on the Magdalen Bridge route sort-of worked.
This wacky idea has no chance. Plenty of ways to circumvent it.
“Oxford City Council and Oxfordshire County Council are mixed up here.”
No, that is the one thing it gets right. Here is the Oxfordshire site. From it
“Six traffic filters – designed to reduce traffic, make bus journeys faster and make walking and cycling safer – will be trialled in Oxford after improvement works to Oxford railway station are complete.
The decision was made by the county council’s cabinet on 29 November 2022.”
“No, that is the one thing it gets right”
No it hasn’t. Not unless Ox City has become subservient to Ox County, and there is nothing in the Local Government Act 2003 that suggests that England has moved to a 3-tier system. It would surprise me if the Dons would allow that. Mind you – Don’t a large number of them still reside in North Oxford? They used to cross High St without looking right/left so I doubt that they could handle anything more complex. Maybe they have all woked?
Back in my university days, there was a story of two Oxford Dons who knew each other, standing on opposite sides of the High Street. One yelled at the other “How did you get over there?”. The other yelled back “I was born this side”.
[The story is illogical, because the Dons couldn’t have known each other, but hey, it’s Oxford.]
The “15-minute city” plan belongs to Oxford City Council with support and suggestions from Oxfordshire County council. See https://www.oxford.gov.uk/downloads/file/8144/bgp_14_15_minute_cities. (In the web page, click Download now),.
So, yes, Oxford City Council and Oxfordshire County Council are indeed mixed up here. But I think that’s excusable because the two of them obviously are mixed up (in both senses).
Perhaps you should try learning about Highways Authorities, martinc19.
I really see that working for tradesmen. Put all those councilors on a list of NO TRADESMEN available until they withdraw. No fridge, no hot water, no washing machine, what about dripping taps, or even worse leaking roof repairs. Add to the list of tradesmen and their vehicles where they need to carry tools, spare parts.
Its just making ‘through traffic’ more difficult – thats all, not “lockdowns”
“People can drive freely around their own neighbourhood and can apply for a permit to drive through the filters, and into other neighbourhoods, for up to 100 days per year. This equates to an average of two days per week.
The alternative is to drive out on to the ring road and then back in to the destination.- Oxford Mail
The story has just mixed up Oxford County and Oxford City ( who are doing this ) and mixed up annoying traffic restrictions with alternative routes, to actual lockdowns where you cannot leave
“apply for a permit” to travel. This used to happen only in communist or fascist states. As someone has commented, why did we bother to win the war.
How accurate this article is I don’t know. But the idea that this can’t happen in the US? The information is just pouring out now on ( documentable verifiable evidence – Twitter) on the extent of collusion with big tech to de platform, censor, and destroy credibility of those simply trying to voice an informed opinion. By who?- our government. We barely have a functioning 1st amendment anymore in the US. And yes I do believe the COVID lockdowns made many left wing (corrupt) politicians and agency heads absolutely drunk with power.
I wonder how long the locals would take to pair up and swap cars at gates. One envisions a more local version of an Uber/Lyft app. One also envisions the government would take far longer to recognize and ban it.
Howdy Scarecrow Repair. How are you on this fine day?
I hope the citizens of Oxfordshire have a means to reverse their inane council muy pronto!
“Communist states like the Soviet Union and China seem to love movement restrictions and internal passports. In my opinion Britain has been edging closer to naked communism for at least half a century..”
Comparing Green lunacy to communism lends it a credibility it doesn’t deserve. China loves movement restrictions so much it’s just built 25,000 miles of high speed rail track.
Ask the Chinese people right now about their access to those 25000 miles of high speed rail, they can’t even leave their apartment buildings or work sites. How many transportation systems they build has nothing to do with individual liberty.
Well said, but it should also be pointed out that the CCP, within seconds, can prevent any Chinese person from even taking a train, high-speed or otherwise, merely by withdrawing his or her Social Credit points.
I remember the good old days when we used to wonder which dystopia we were headed for: 1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451 or Mad Max. As if we could only have one.
You forgot Atlas Shrugged. I’m sure we’re missing others.
April 1st already?
I currently live in a town less than 40 miles from Oxford. The local council recently changed a two lane road into the town center to single carriageway, making the time-limited bus lane permanent. Twenty four hours a day, even though the buses don’t run twenty four hours a day.
The excuse? To “encourage” alternative transport, using the stick rather than the carrot.
As well as the created congestion, the fines to large numbers of drivers who didn’t notice the small change to road signs caused local outrage. They changed it back.
I predict a riot in Oxford.
I grew up in New York City, in Manhattan. In the 1960s owning an auto in Manhattan was insanely expensive and I, like most lower class people, could not afford it. Gun ownership was impossible unless you were an ex-cop or a Mafia bodyguard.
Basically, if you wanted to travel you used public transportation which meant that you could go where the government let you and when the government let you. Murder rates were higher than now so walking at night was dangerous.
I moved to Los Angeles and seeing that public transportation was impossible, I bought a motorcycle. For the first time in my life I could go anywhere I wanted, anytime I wanted. I suddenly understood the campaign against automobiles and for public transportation. It’s the sense of being in control of your life that politicians hated.
When I moved to a suburb of Seattle, I got a concealed pistol permit. I rarely carry, but when I do it’s because of the time of day and the area I’m in. In my 70’s I don’t have the reflexes to get out of trouble if it finds me, so knowing I’m armed gives me a freedom to move that I would not have otherwise.
In New York, the people are “pacified” and accept that they are serfs, helpless without the state to provide for them. Ultimately, that’s the reason that all large cities in the US are heavy Democrat voters.
Culture is upstream from politics, but even more importantly, when you control the culture, you control not just people’s actions, but their very minds. Political force can bend people to the will of the state, but using the culture, people can be made to bend themselves.
Does a carry permit for a shooter entitle you to always shoot first in anticipation?
‘Cause it seems to me that that’s the only way it provides any real protection.
Good luck with your arrangement anyway though.
If you have a legitimate and immediate threat to your life, you can use deadly force. If someone threatens your life but there is an easy safe retreat you have to use it. WA doesn’t have a “Castle Doctrine” so there’s no guarantee that merely saying that you were cornered or lacked the physical ability to escape may not be a defense. If you are physically assaulted then you can use deadly force and that has been fairly consistently upheld.
It comes down to the old expression “Better to be judged by 12 than to be carried by 6”. I won’t shoot unless I am reasonably sure that the alternative is serious injury or death. Hopefully, I will never have to make that decision.
“a county council travel chief has insisted the controversial plan would go ahead whether people liked it or not.”… until that is the people of Oxford vote them out, in disgust & anger. V thy these people can’t understand the limits of their power beats me. The power goes to their heads and mams them think they rule the world. They forget that the public are ultimately in control, lending it temporarily to them.
Who counts the votes?
“…This equates to an average of two days per week….”
________________________________________
And eventually never if you don’t get your head right.
It sounds like the Twilight Zone.
Closer inspection of the policy shows the following:
The traffic filters are on 6 busy roads into town, and will only operate during day-time.
Residents will be allowed to pass through 100 times per year for free, will pay £70 after that.
Frequent road users will be exempted altogether.
This is no climate lockdown. It is non-linear road pricing.
I disagree Richard. The goal is to create a “15 minute city”, to coerce people to use resources within a 15 minute radius of their home, regardless of whether they are the best resources to suit their needs – just like some Covid lockdowns limited people’s movement to their local area.
The document Introducing the “15-Minute City”: Sustainability, Resilience and Place Identity in Future Post-Pandemic Cities explicitly mentions climate change and The Paris Agreement as justifications for moving towards this model.
The economic damage I claim will accrue is through disincentivising people to seek the best personal economic outcomes, by reducing the geographic radius people can search to find the best suppliers of goods and services, without incurring a financial penalty.
Granted £70 is a fairly mild penalty, except for people on low incomes, but if this policy continues, I doubt it will stay £70 for long. And the 100 day allowance would almost certainly be reduced over time.
The goal is to create a “15 minute city”
This is really twisting to fit a narrative. There is a very clear goal, which is to do something about Oxford’s dysfunctional traffic. I spent some time last year looking out the window at St Cross Rd, which is where one of the filters will go. St Cross Rd is the only functional N-S road passing East of the city and W of the Cherwell. At peak hour, especially in mornings, it was jammed solid; it could take up to an hour to get to High St. That blocks everyone. Others of those filter points were similar.
This is just the council trying to make it possible for at least some traffic to get through. It’s fairly drastic, and there is a lot of local opposition. Midnight sawing off of bollards happens. I thought they might abandon the scheme at this review point, but apparently not.
It wasn’t me who said “15 minute city” Nick.
Indeed, no. Oxford talks about it, with a paper here, titled, in fact, “15 minute neighbourhoods”. But notice something? It is full of town planning enthusiasm, but says nothing about climate (except to report that some people responding to council surveys mentioned it). You’re trying to beat up something from the fact that you found that an unrelated French academic paper which seemed to think they would be good for climate.
Did you actually read the document Nick? From your link:
“… Experience of neighbourhood and travel
The County Council identified the Plan should include reference to the following: 15/20 minute neighbourhoods, reducing air pollution, consider integration at the edge of the city and prioritise sustainable travel. …”
There is no coercion, Eric. There is non-linear road pricing, that only applies to commuters and occasional visitors.
The council is clear they want to create 15 minute neighbourhoods Richard. The coercion is the £70 penalty for having a job over the border in the next district. If you see nothing sinister about council telling you where you can travel, and issuing limited permits to travel to different suburbs, backed by a financial penalty, then that’s your lookout.
A fine is not coercion. The road will not be closed. Cars will not be impounded. No one will be imprisoned. If you travel without a permit, you will be fined. If you have a good reason to travel without a permit, the fine will be waived. For most trips, a permit will be issued free of charge.
Furthermore, you should distinguish between the aspiration (15 min neighbourhoods) and the actual policy (traffic filters on 6 busy roads at day time, with generous exemptions).
The aspiration is, in fact, benign. They hope that the people in and around Oxford would be within a 15 min bus or bike ride from everything they do on a weekly basis: work, school, shop, recreate. I wish that were true for me.
There is no plan to forbid people to travel 16 mins, there is no plan to ban cars.
The planned traffic filters only apply to trips into central Oxford. You can drive around Oxford to your heart’s desire. You can visit the neighbouring village, or London or Birmingham, as often as you want.
This is nothing more than a regressive tax, hitting the poor much harder. Is being poor going to be an exemption? What if you are living on a fixed income and heating prices continue to go up and you must still go visit your sick mother outside the zone every day? Will that be an exemption? Will you need to bring a note from a doctor to get the exemption?
Carers are exempted.
Richer people are more likely to commute by car into Oxford.
“A fine is not coercion.”
smh
If the aspiration was benign the plan would be to help fill gaps in services so people would accept the 15 minute lifestyle of their own free will, without the coercion of a fine.
The traffic filters are a means to manage traffic in central Oxford, largely unrelated to the 15 min neighbourhoods.
Includes delivery vehicles?
I think you can apply for an exemption. Goodness knows what morality tests will be applied to the exemptions. Likely large companies will find it easier to deal with the bureaucracy, especially if the practice spreads.
Vans are exempt.
So it’s communism’s fault?
…
Yeah, and then you form an armed mob, destroy the local council buildings, set fire to the number plate cameras, tear up the barriers and kill anyone who tries to stop you.
Its called ‘revolution’, it is what we do when government becomes oppressive, and we have done it many times over the millennia, most recently in England, in 1650, and later in the American colonies in 1770.
And we will again.
WUWT doesn’t condone violence Zzebowa. Britain has well conducted local government elections.
You are like Extinction Rebellion and the Just Stop Oil idiots. Actually you are worse, because they at least do not advocate revolution and destruction of buildings etc.
You are proposing revolution because a local council proposes to do a pilot project to limit the amount of traffic now flowing through streets completely not designed to handle it!
Just read about what they are intending. Its perfectly reasonable, its not any infringement of personal liberty.
https://letstalk.oxfordshire.gov.uk/traffic-filters-2022
It does not regulate travel! All it regulates is driving a car.
People commenting here don’t even seem to understand how local government works in the UK. Traffic and highways are a County Council matter.
And the talk about revolution, mad as it is, also shows a total ignorance of UK constitutional history. No, the important one was not Magna Carta, nor was it the civil war. It was the revolution of 1688 which resulted in the Bill of Rights of 1689. Yes, the UK does have a bill of rights. And a tradition of common law rights.
And no, they do not include the right to drive anywhere you please whenever you please.
I can understand the alarm, but there is more to the story. Oxford is a historic town with a medieval city center that is very difficult to navigate. This is probably more an attempt to control excessive traffic in a special-case situation. Thanks to tonyb, commenter on Jo’s site, for the clarification. The original story was modified accordingly.
https://letstalk.oxfordshire.gov.uk/traffic-filters-2022
this is unbelieveable
if the people go along with this they will get what they deserve
Jeezus, I do not normally condone physical violence but I guess there has to be a limit somewhere. If someone tries this in a town near me , I suspect I may react badly.
This story is really ridiculous.
First, the pic is showing an ordinary high table dinner, not any kind of famous feast. College dining halls were long tables at which the students sat and the staff served, and at one end of the hall, on a raised platform, the dons sat. Their table was at right angles to the students’, as you see on this pic. Perfectly ordinary, probably was that way for 100s of years, and entirely reasonable to provide a separate area for the dons.
Second, there is no proposal to restrict people to their little area. It is not a restriction on travel. The only proposal seems to be to limit the use of cars to move through the city. Any other way people want to travel through the city, they can – bike, walk, public transport.
In addition, they want to travel from one of the designated areas to another without crossing the filter, they can do this too, just take a less direct route, go out to the ring road and then come in.
This is an attempt to do something about the problem Oxford has, which is a very restricted center through which all traffic gets funnelled on one or two very congested routes, which are also the routes people use to walk through the center and shop or get from place to place.
It is entirely reasonable to conclude the only solution to this is restrict the number of cars driving through the center on the way between two other parts of the city. You’d have to see the numbers to make a proper assessment, but it seems a quite reasonable idea to restrict this traffic.
The restriction is also not draconian. It simply tries to limit the number of trips, and the limitation is so small that the question one should be asking is whether this is enough to make a material difference.
Other cities have done similar things – take a look at the traffic regulations in Cambridge, for instance, suffering from a similar problem.
Lots of people object to measures like this on a question of values. What they value is being able to drive through anywhere they want on the way to where they want to go. But setting the highest priority on this is a question of what you value.
It is quite reasonable to set a higher value on having a quiet low traffic city center where people can walk and cycle as they used to years ago before we had city centers totally dominated by cars.
Now, whether the particular scheme is sensible, that’s impossible to judge without seeing the analysis and the numbers. If they were motivated by net-zero considerations, that is idiotic, of course. But its not at all idiotic to want to reduce car traffic in the city. And the rants in the rest of this thread about communism and authoritarianism are completely idiotic.
The plain fact is that pedestrian areas of cities are much nicer places to visit. You can see it in lots of English cities, and you can see it all over Holland, who got there before anyone else in Europe. It is entirely reasonable for city councils to consider and try ways of improving the shopping and leisure environment of the city shopping streets. Whether this is the best or even a good way is a different question. And that is the one that people should focus on, not this conspiratorial nonsense that seems to be dominating this thread.
There are local elections next May so that is the chance for the people to change the make up of both Oxfordshire County Council (the Highway Authority) and Oxford City Council. I can see business booming in places outside the city concentration camps and those inside dwindling away especially if there are too few people in their gulag section to support them.
If true this is absolutely insane. Britain unfortunately needs to have their 1789 moment, it really looks like it will have to come to the point where people are dragged into the street.
Better now than later.
The rather hysterical reporting on this is a bit silly. They have identified six points, on six streets, where access for private cars will be limited. This is not the same as dividing the city into 6. I notice nobody complaining that the entire centre of Florence, which has the same problems (narrow streets, historic buildings), is car free.
Apparently reacting to climate change requires authoritarianism — therefore authoritarianism is no longer a bad thing.
I am surprised this story has not been retracted as it must now be clear to the author that it is almost entirely made-up.
Nonsense Richard.
There is no lockdown, it has little to do with climate, and it’s not a trial either. You did get Oxfordshire right.
It’s still there.
NOAA-Scripps Mauna Loa’s measured net increase in CO2 due to all sources and sinks, human & natural = 2.58 ppm or 0.000258% for 2020. (That’s avg 414.24 for 2020 minus avg 411.66 for 2019.) Same source: Average net CO2 increase over last 51 yrs = 1.76 ppm/yr. That rate doubles CO2 concentration in 200 yrs and temperature increases only 0.75 Kelvin. But plant growth would increase and plants would need less water, thus Earth continues to become greener and feed more people. No one knows cause of this slow CO2 increase, but clearly it is not human fossil fuels since, after removing the shared timeline simultaneity bias, there is no correlation between AGW proponent’s (e.g. CDIAC) modeled trend of fossil fuel CO2 versus NOAA-Scripps-measured trend in net CO2. More CO2 and heat would bring many benefits, few if any downsides.
There is no climate crisis except the power mongers and true believers pushing climate crisis. Power deludes politicians into believing it can overcome the defects of their ignorance.
These climate change fools don’t know about the defence industry weather modification tools that should have total control by 2025
It seems the Nazi’s won after all!
Is this a parody site?
I GRIEVE the fact that I can no longer tell lunacy from news.
Criminal damage will have no effect on climate, or anyones policy on climate.
Their ”cause” is just an excuse for wanton vandalism.
The climate will continue to change, regardless of human activity, as it has done for hundreds of millions of years.
Anyone who continues to think that burning fossil fuels affects climate, should try doing a tiny bit of basic research.
CO2 has varied from 7000 ppm to the present low of 400 ppm during the last 600 million years. During that time, global CO2, has risen for millions of years, while global temperature fell for millions of years, and the reverse. Therefore as the observed facts contradict the theory, that a miserable 40 ppm of human generated CO2 will cause climate heating/change, the theory is WRONG!
If the people of Oxford allow this to happen, they truly deserve it
I know nothing about the laws in the U.K. but I’m curious if Oxfordshire has the ability to do this legally? Wouldn’t their greater overarching government have the ability to say this is illegal, if it is indeed illegal.
I’m sure the Democrats will propose and attempt to implement this in America, probably starting in California. I just don’t understand how a free people would allow themselves to be caged like this. At the moment, we have freedom of movement in America, but we’ve seen how that can be curtailed based on, by every metric, a virus with overwhelming survivability.
It is indeed illegal in the UK to lock people up in their neighbourhood, and indeed there is no plan to do this (except in Eric’s head).
Congratulations, @Eric Worrall! The AP has decided to put a “fact check” on your report. You can read it here:
https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-oxford-climate-lockdown-016485612575?fbclid=IwAR2qNfTLCCLMhncToZJAHisCzMC5tWUTtf3rJAp9uSk1_avlY9ePnSl27Lg
The joint statement from the Oxfordshire County and City Councils addressing the so-called “misinformation” is here:
https://www.oxford.gov.uk/news/article/2332/joint_statement_from_oxfordshire_county_council_and_oxford_city_council_on_oxford_s_traffic_filters
First of all, just about everything in this site is a lie. This is nowhere near the world’s most viewed site on global warming and climate change. If you wanted to go to the world’s most viewed site on global warming and climate change, go to Google and search for “global warming” or “climate change”.
Climate lockdowns are NOT A THING. Repeat with me: NOT A THING. They DO NOT EXIST.
If anybody ever bothered to do their own research on the Internet (and who the F actually cares, right? Why research when you can actually, you know, wank and feel special because you think you “know” something which is, at best, an irrelevancy, but most often, just pure effing lies?)… as I said, if anybody ever bothered to use, you know, Google, in order to, you know, check if somebody is lying, just in case somebody has some shady agenda that consists in finding out who are the stupidest people online, and then fleece all of their money out of them, because who the F is going to care if say, Uncle Idiot or Great-Aunt Senile gives all their money away to some scammer… as I said, if anybody ever bothered to check info they read on the Internet, just in case it’s literally true that the Internet is actively trying to make every goddamned idiot homeless, this is what they would find with the slightest effort:
https://news.oxfordshire.gov.uk/joint-statement-from-oxfordshire-county-council-and-oxford-city-council-on-oxfords-traffic-filters/#:~:text=The%2015%2Dminute%20neighbourhoods%20proposal%20aims%20to%20ensure%20that%20every,add%20services%2C%20not%20restrict%20them.
But because people reading this might be challenged in the “reading long stuff” department, here is the best bit:
Will the Oxford traffic filters be physical barriers?
No.
Now, which part of NO is unclear there?
That’s the problem in the cities and the stress. No such complicated Laws when living in the mountains. If the papacy will intervene with its Sunday blue laws telling people to keep Sunday, we call that bullshit and apostasy against God the Creator who commanded us to “REMEMBER THE SABBATH DAY TO KEEP IT HOLY. SIX DAYS YOU SHALL LABOUR AND DO ALL YOUR WORK, BUT THE SEVENTH DAY IS THE SABBATH OF THE LORD YOUR GOD, IN IT YOU WILL NOT DO ANY WORK.” (Exodus 20.8-11). If you want to make a day of, that should be on the Sabbath day, NOT SUNDAY.