Essay by Eric Worrall
A shocking video has emerged of anti-vehicle activists illegally blocking a road in Oxford, to enforce their version of low traffic rules.
I don’t know the people in the video above were climate activists, they might just be locals who are fed up with people using their street as a rat run.
But Oxford is kindof a hotbed for extreme green ideology.
In 2022, Oxfordshire Council infamously implemented a climate lockdown when they embraced “15 minute city” anti-automobile policies.
I’m guessing the chokepoint pictured above is one of those points vehicles are only supposed to pass 100x per year. But people like doctors and trades people were supposed to be able to apply for an exemption, and stopping traffic altogether wasn’t part of the official plan.
Perhaps cleaners like the lady in the video above aren’t considered important enough to qualify for an exemption.
I doubt this will end well for the blue haired activist and his friends, if they keep messing people’s lives up with their roadblocks. Other illegal green roadblocks in Britain have ended in manhandling and violence.
I want to make it clear WUWT does not condone violence. The long term solution is for British people to vote for politicians who care about their problems. Even if the candidate doesn’t win, it sends a message. Even lazy politicians care about what happens on election day.
I think sending such activists to spend a few years herding sheep on one of the outer Scottish islands might give them pause. Of course, no heat or cooking fuel but sheep dung.
Won’t be long ’til you hear them saying, “I love the smell of sheep dung in the morning…It smells like victory.”
Regards,
Bob
Like the JSO activists, I would love to see how they could live for a year completely, 100% WITHOUT oil & gas powered essential services, and ALL the materials and products derived from them, in any shape or form. These folk just don’t understand the volumes of steel, concrete and lubricants, i.e. oil., that’s needed to manufacture and operate each wind turbine. Without hydrocarbon fuels, renewables just couldn’t and wouldn’t exist.
I read somewhere, recently, that each turbine consumes some 70 tonnes of oil products.
I would add to your list, pharmaceuticals, and medical equipment.
South Georgia is nice this time of year.
The island of St Kilda, would do nicely. They will soon get fed up with “Just Stop Oil”.
“I don’t know the people in the video above were climate activists”
yet you put it in the headline, with no evidence at all. And you repeat your thoroughly discredited claim that Oxford implemented a “climate lockdown”.
In fact through flow in the narrow Oxford streets is just a traffic problem. The City Council has implemented a policy with much support, though some people hate it. You are seeing that happening here.
Oxford City Council refer to their measures as climate measures https://www.oxford.gov.uk/news/article/1275/city_council_responds_to_oxford_citizens_assembly_on_climate_change_and_outlines_19m_climate_emergency_budget, so activists jumping the gun to implement their version are very likely climate activists. But not certainly, hence the question mark in the title.
They do not refer to these traffic control measures as climate measures. What you linked is just a generic policy to cut emissions. They list encouraging EVs etc. Nothing about restricting streets.
You block a road, you’re a terrorist and deserve a terrorists response.
The Council blocked the road. It put up planters and a sign saying No Motor Vehicles Allowed.
The Council is not a terrorist.
I believe the gentleman on camera stated that he was enforcing the law.
Do citizens, or even Council members, have the authority to enforce laws in the UK?
I would have asked him if he was a police officer while obviously filming.
I agree that “The Council is not a terrorist”.
However, totalitarians and fascists certainly enjoy imposing THEIR will on others.
Citizen’s arrest…
The council is fascist.
Merriam-Webster:
fascism
1 often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
2 a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control
Council’s all over the world have, for at least fifty years, closed off streets to prevent them being used for through traffic. It is normal traffic management, not fascism.
That’s interesting, because there’s clearly vehicles visible in there.
Yes, they blocked one end.
Isn’t it fascinating how to socialists, government can never be wrong.
Everything they do relates to climate. And they most certainly do restrict streets, not with physical barriers but with direct restrictions and swingeing fines: “If a vehicle passes through the filter at certain times of the day, the camera will read the number plate and .. you will receive a fine in the post.”. From the Oxford City Council website.
The site also says:
“Oxford residents (and residents of some surrounding villages) will be able to apply for a permit to drive through the filters on up to 100 days a year. Residents living in the rest of Oxfordshire will be able to apply for a permit to drive through the filter on up to 25 days a year. “
Nick,
There are 2 approaches we can use for societal regulation.
You seem to me to favour approach #2
You cannot organise traffic on the basis of 1). Well, some places in Asia used to be something like that. But the result is chaos, and no-one can move.
And that is pretty much what was happening in Oxford. You were free to travel through the St Cross St filter, but it would take you an hour or so to cover a kilometer. That affected all traffic. With regulation, some may be prevailed on to take alternative routes, but this key section of road will be useful to many, instead of none.
And, of course, you are still free to do anything not proscribed by law. But there are more laws.
Ordinary citizens need permits to travel in their own country? Like I said – fascism.
Driver’s licenses = fascism?
Bus tickets = fascism?
A closer analogy is the terrorists who drive their cars into crowded marketplaces.
They are not allowed to do that for the safety and convenience of the market place users.
But the terrorists want to drive where they are not allowed and WUWT applauds them.
This is a terrible error.
“But the terrorists want to drive where they are not allowed and WUWT applauds them.”
TOTAL BS .
Note the examples on this page. e.g. Pat from Kerbob, March 28, 2023 9:39 pm.
Remember this is a pedestrianised zone. Children walking are being surprised by cars driving illegally through their space.
It’s no different to a woman demanding the right to drive through your back garden because it’s a shorter route for her.
And you applaud the aggressor.
Nick, you are right and wrong.
You’re right of course to say that councils everywhere in the UK and elsewhere restrict traffic, and that they do it to prevent congestion and the associated delays and air pollution.
You’re also right to say that the situation in Oxford requires traffic regulation because the narrow streets and the choke point of the city center intersection makes heavy congestion inevitable otherwise.
This is just responsible traffic management. But where you are missing the point is a different mater. The problem is that the global warming and net-zero manias have ended up polluting perfectly sensible traffic control measures.
Anyone who reads the link
https://www.oxford.gov.uk/news/article/1275/city_council_responds_to_oxford_citizens_assembly_on_climate_change_and_outlines_19m_climate_emergency_budget
will see that the net zero idiocy is in full flow. Why on earth does a city want to get to net zero? What effect do they think it will have on climate change? Its completely obsessive hobby horsing. Getting to local net zero has no benefits for the residents of the city and has no effect on climate. And that is not the kind of thing local or county councils in the UK are elected to do. They are elected to run services and make regulations for the benefit of the local population, not to grandstand on global issues which are the proper province of the national government.
We had for a while the equally idiotic spectacle of various politically correct local councils in the UK putting up posters to the effect that they were making Norwich or Hartlepool a nuclear free zone. Making anything nuclear free is a national government issue.
The effect of all this posturing is to pollute the perhaps very sensible traffic regulation with suspicion about the motives. A reasonable suspicion. Especially when you add the latest news, that Oxford appears to have suppressed studies showing that actually the scheme is going to increase emissions, not reduce them.
This is an example of one of the many damaging aspects of the current climate/energy hysteria. It lessens the credibility of very reasonable environmental measures of all kinds by tarring them with the same brush of hysterical and dysfunctional policies. Same thing in reverse in Scotland, where perfectly rational road improvements directed at reducing accidents are being blocked by the Scottish Greens ‘because climate’. The pollution there is going the other way.
What Oxford needs to do to avoid thoroughly alienating its residents is drop all the climate and net zero nonsense, leave that to national government. And get on with regulating traffic on the merits of the schemes. The less people suspect there is a hidden climate agenda at work motivating a long term plan to reduce cars by making them harder to use to get around, the easier ride they will have from residents.
For another example of the same stupid thing, look at Sadiq Khan’s plans in London for the ULEZ, which are attracting vandalism from residents and refusals by local councils to allow enforcement cameras. Just get the climate nonsense out of it, and manage the cities for the benefit of the residents, and things will go much more smoothly.
“The problem is that the global warming and net-zero manias have ended up polluting perfectly sensible traffic control measures.”
Yes. Forty miles away, in God’s own county of Northamptonshire, they suddenly decided that a rush-hour bus lane should be made prohibitive to cars 24 hours a day (with cameras and fines).
There was no need, and the busses don’t run 24 hours a day. It made the congestion worse. They quietly retreated after public outcry.
“The problem is that the global warming and net-zero manias have ended up polluting perfectly sensible traffic control measures.”
They haven’t polluted perfectly sensible traffic control measures. They have implemented them. Just as they still fix potholes.
The pollution is in your mind.
Sorry, I have evidently not been clear. What has happened is that in the minds of the electorate and the residents they have managed to pollute perfectly sensible traffic plans because they have got them associated with the council’s climate mania. The residents have become rightly suspicious of sensible traffic control measures because they have become associated in their minds with an idiotic agenda on climate.
I don’t blame them. If you read the material the council has put out and consider the complete idiocy of the idea of making a small city like Oxford a net zero environment, who can blame them for making the association and being suspicious of any policy choices the council makes on topics which are normally associated with climate? Transport and cars are evidently one of these, not just in Oxford, but at a national level also. Indeed, at an EU level also.
The way to avoid this, the way to keep the respect of your residents and to have your traffic plans considered on their merits, is to stop grandstanding about climate, stop trying to make Oxford or wherever a net zero city, leave to national government the issues which are in its proper province, and just focus on good administration and the well being of your own residents.
Nick, I am agreeing with you that traffic control measures are appropriate and necessary for Oxford. In fact my criticism of the proposals is that they probably don’t go far enough to improve the city center’s liveablilty. But I think the council’s posturing about climate is getting well in the way of their getting sensible traffic proposals implemented smoothly, because it rightly persuades the residents that they are being governed by a bunch of nut cases who have their minds on things which don’t benefit them, and which are well beyond their powers and competence.
michel,
I said the pollution was in your mind; you are saying it is in other people’s as well. But in Oxford, their climate stance is probably a lot more popular than the LTNs. They get elected.
Councils have basic functions such as traffic management. They have to carry them out even if some disagree with their views on climate.
The problem is, the council’s climate and net zero mania have created distrust in their traffic agenda. This has happened in other places in the UK too.
The reasonable suspicion is that their real motivation is traffic reduction in pursuit of the idiotic Net Zero for Oxford policy, which is of no benefit to the residents, rather than improving traffic flows and reducing really damaging air pollution.
I think, but its only an impression and not based on any rigorous opinion polling, that traffic regs which promote the use of EVs in UK cities, make calm streets for bikes and walkers, and are justified on that basis, will command quite wide support.
Traffic regs which are believed to be the result of net zero or global warming obsessions by councils will meet with strong and vocal opposition.
Unfortunately the result of this is not to stop councils being obsessed. It is they don’t admit to their real motivation and they start faking the numbers. And the suspicion of this increases opposition to measures which, if chosen to benefit the residents and justified on that basis, might have a good chance of getting popular support.
Its really simple. If you are told, driving here is restricted because this is a sensible scheme which does the minimum inconvenience to improve air quality a lot, in short its traffic management, you may say OK, understandable. If its done in pursuit of getting your city to net zero because climate, it probably irritates and enrages you.
If you think its being sold as the first when in fact its the second, you start thinking about voting Reform. And some, as in the London ULEZ, start blocking installation of the infrastructure.
Whatever happened to “Park & Ride”, where municipalities would put in large parking lots near a train station to encourage people to ride trains into a major city? Commuter trains cause less emissions per passenger-mile than cars, so this would reduce total emissions.
Oxford has Park and Ride. But the parking lots are just outside the ring road, as with Thornhill on the London road, and transit into the City is by bus.
One of the traffic control issues is enabling the buses to get through.
Actually, Nick, you are mis-representing the situation. The Oxford City Council started a rule to limit use of city streets. They placed cameras at strategic locations to record vehicle license plates, and then proposed a fine for those who were in excess of their alloted access. The Council stated that “at no time will there be barriers or access denied to vehicles. The video shows persons with both barriers and blocking access. These are CAGW Looney friends of yours attempting to utilize a rule to establish their own agenda. Nick, shame of you for your false comment.
You are confusing two schemes. There is one to provide six “filters” at key locations. There is another, which preceded it, to block access to various rat-runs, with bollards or just sign restrictions, as here.
You side with them, you deserve what they get. Short drop and a sudden stop.
That is uncalled for, sewie, and has no place here.
Says our man in England
Good to know you’re on the spot taking notes….
Actually, I was in Oxford over Christmas, in Divinity Road right next to a traffic block.
And?
Just giving you reassurance.
Nick, If reassurance was wanted, I can confidently say, you are excused from that.
Divinity Road hey? Walked up it myself a couple of times over weekend 17th – 19th March. In Oxford for college reunion. Stayed with good friend, ex Prof Biochemistry, lives in Minster Road. Small world!
Nit-pick nick strikes again.
Two points
1) The council said that cars can use this area up to 100 times per year. These self righteous activists aren’t checking to see if anyone has exceeded their government allocated allotment of freedom, they are stopping everyone.
2) If the “locals” are upset about traffic, they need to support the construction of alternate routes, rather than just declaring that people won’t be allowed to drive to work anymore.
“ they are stopping everyone”
They aren’t stopping anyone.
“they need to support the construction of alternate routes”
Let’s see your plan for constructing alternate routes in central Oxford. I don’t think it will be popular.
In fact they have constructed an alternative route, which is the ring road.
How typical, unless I can create detailed plans, I’m not allowed to suggest solutions.
Nick will do whatever it takes to change the subject.
“The council said that cars can use this area up to 100 times per year. “
Again, just confusing two schemes. One is the six filters, where no-one is stopped, but your transits are counted. The other is an older scheme where short cut streets are blocked to certain traffic types, usually private cars. That is the situation in the video.
CLLR Liam Walker, has just revealed, that the Council, withheld important figures on traffic data, deliberately, because they considered it would impact the consultation.
https://youtu.be/nK0qzw3z11o
Well do e that truck driver! Why are the police not removing these idiots before one of them gets run over?
Would it be considered violent to empty an expired auto fire extinguisher on a protester claiming that the world is burning?
A more accurate description might be “local residents enforce the law”. Unless of course you believe that buying a 4×4 entitles you to drive as fast as you like down whatever street you like and that any other road users should get out of your way.
Low traffic neighbours are designed to encourage other modes of transport and to make it safe for people and especially children to ride bikes or scooters or even walk to school. The fact that some people see this as an affront to their liberty shows how little they understand or care about others.
Who pays for roads upkeep and maintenance Izaak?
Registered vehicles owners, that’s who.
NOT bike riders, scooter riders, skateboarders, pedestrians or protestors.
If they want to use or commandeer roads, make them PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE!
Bludgers!
Well it very much depends.
Local roads are funded out of local council spending and as such are not directly funded by drivers. Anyone who pays rates in that location is also contributing to local roads.
In Australia federally funded roads are allocated money from things like the Diesel Tax, state roads are partially funded by fees from licenses etc.
Like most socialists, Izaak wants what he wants, and he want’s someone else to pay for it.
Please wake up!
Road Tax was abolished in 1937 in the UK. Since then roads have been funded out of general taxation.
Bike riders etc do pay for roads along with everyone who pays any kinds of taxes. Income tax, VAT, excise duty, any kind of tax. Some are hypothecated, as with the TV license, but very few. You bought a bike, you paid VAT on it, and that went into general taxation.
Which does not stop people still working themselves up into a fury over their wholly imaginary payments to an imaginary road fund which hasn’t existed for near on 100 years, and demanding that everyone not driving a car leave the roads exclusively to cars.
Not that it really matters, because roads in the UK are not restricted to those who pay for them. Roads in the UK are like the NHS. Or public libraries. You get to use them regardless of how much or little tax you paid and what you paid it on. They are, legally, a public good with conditions of use set by law without regard to how they are funded and by who.
All taxpayers in the UK pay for the roads, whether they own a car or not.
Let their local police do their job. There is no place in society for these vigilanties.
Nice conflation of anyone who drives a 4×4 with such reckless behaviour.
You do understand that dividing the world into a Venn diagram which has one set labelled “GOOD PERSON” which is defined as “anyone who agrees with me in any way” and the remainder labelled as “BAD SUB HUMAN” does a very bad job of describing the world.
There’s a lot of 4×4 and truck envy that mascarades as climate concern – meanwhile the owners just wanted a tougher vehicle and they get ostracized.
The locals aren’t enforcing the ordinance. The ordinance allows people to use these roads, just limits how frequently. These activists are blocking the road completely.
I love how socialists think. We allow some restrictions, therefore all restrictions are legitimate.
I’m willing to bet that everyone of the people who support blocking these roads, also fight tooth and nail against building alternate roads for people to use.
Like Izaak, their goal is not to reduce traffic, it’s to limit people’s lifestyle choices to things the activists approve of.
A more accurate description might be “local residents enforce the law”.
So you would be perfectly fine with private citizens patrolling the US-Mexico border and making border crossers return to Mexico or arrest them?
Those hippies are not entitled to enforce the law. That is for the police and council to do
It appears they are all available to work. Put them to work reopening the coal mines and coal power generators.
That’s what the “go” pedal is for.
These type of Planter Roadblocks seem to be causing lots of pollution in Rochdale near Manchester.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1752097/low-traffic-neighbourhoods-protest-rochdale
This article is in terrible error. I suggest Antony Watts closes comments and puts an apology at the top.
Mistake 1: This is not one of the climate change closures.
Mistake 2: The woman had no right to drive there. The sign says it was illegal for motorised vehicles to drive down that road. The bicycle passed because it is legal. The article implies that pedestrianised zones are immoral. If that is the case make that argument. .It has nothing to do with climate change.
Mistake 3: The public have every right to enforce the law with reasonable force. It is not soley the duty of the police to suppress criminals.
Mistake 4: Being late for work is your own responsibility. It does not give permission to break the law. Would you applaud this woman for driving her car through your house because she got up late?
If she was trying to drive through someone’s house I would have agreed with you. But she wasn’t trying to drive through someone’s house, she was trying to get to work, and being obstructed by what appears to be one of Oxford’s attempts to create misery for drivers, along with a bunch of hooligans who decided to take the law into their own hands.
You do not know UK road signs,
This is not a road for motorised vehicles.
The reason that there is room for motorised vehicles to enter is that access for emergency vehicles, ambulances and fire engines, is still required.
If there’s a gap in a hedge can you drive over a farmer’s crops? NO!
If there’s a gap in a fence can you drive over a children’s playground? NO!
If there’s a gap between roadsigns can you drive over a pedestrianised area? NO!
I applaud these concerned citizens who stand up to criminals. You applaud criminals.
This is a mistake. Your mistake.
Yes, the article is totally unfactual, beginning with the headline
“Oxford Climate Activists Setting Up Illegal Roadblocks?”
They are of course not climate activists, and not a shred of evidence is provided to say they are. They did not set up the roadblocks – that was done by the council, legally. They just remonstrated with someone who was blatantly breaking the law, and seemed to think that was OK, as long as she could afford to pay the fine.
I agree with that.
Except I see no evidence that she has any intention of paying the fine, anymore than she has any intention of obeying the traffic laws.
Oh, come on Nick, those idiots in the high viz were enjoying looking for a chance to annoy people. It’s not their job to enforce the rules of the road. Was the driver in the wrong? Yes.
Did those silly hippies need to be there? No. They should leave it to the police and council.
The woman might have a right to drive there.
But regardless, the road traffic act (from which those signs take their meaning) can only be enforced by the police, not by the public, precisely because of the dangers that can be created by people enforcing what they believe the law says – dangers both to themselves and to other road users. It’s written right into the act. It might seem laughable to say these idiots are endangering anyone by standing on a low-speed road and blocking traffic, but just imagine if an ambulance or a fire engine needed to get through. Suddenly, they’re causing a potentially fatal obstruction.
The woman has no right to drive there. That’s what the sign means. No motorised vehicles.
Would they block an ambulance or fire engine? That seems unlikely. They are enforcing the law, after all. And when the woman insisted on breaking the law they did let her get through – no escalation to violence.
Would you really sit back and wait for the police to come, rather than defend your own street where your own family walk?
They are breaking the law. The road traffic act can not be enforced by the public because of the inherent dangers involved in any acts required to enforce it. You can’t defend the law by breaking the law.
You very much can defend your street, With reasonable force.
Standing by the traffic signs and highlighting them is legitimate protest.
Warning someone that they are about to be fined for their illegal actions is a public service.
Free speech is not illegal.
And finally when confronted with the criminal’s aggression, they got out of the way and let her break the law – as a traffic offence is not as bad as a street fight.
It is a terrible indictment of the current readership of WUWT that laws are held in such contempt.
Just read these comments and think to yourself, “Would I rather be associated with the Mike Pence Republicans or these lawbreakers here”.
What in the hell does mike pence have to do with this? We aren’t American.
Obstructing the highway is a criminal act. It doesn’t matter if the law says that cars can’t pass through there. The same law that gives that sign its legal weight also states, specifically, that it can only be enforced by the police, because citizens blocking roads to “enforce the law” is dangerous.
What has Mike Pence and US national politics got to do with road traffic control in a UK town?
They had no right to try and enforce the law. That is for the police to do. They were deliberately looking for confrontation as part of their eco-zealotry.
Sack the council, pull down the cameras, get the idiots off the road, and get the cars moving…Simple.
“…They placed cameras at strategic locations to record vehicle license plates, and then proposed a fine for those who were in excess of their alloted access…”
Bicycle, Covid mask, 5W handheld laser…
Blue hair, high biz jackets and no legal authority to do what they’re doing indicates very clearly that these three looms are of the XR / JSO type. Jail the lot of them. It’s the only way to stop them.
I thought the sign said ‘Beware of low flying motorcyles’
Since we are usually presented with no choice when it comes to elections, contrary to Mr Worrall’s view, direct action including violence will be the only way forward for the people to make change happen. As soon as one of these fascist Low Traffic Neighbourhoods was installed in Rochdale, the people had burned the planters blocking the roads and dragged them away. Remember ‘war is the pursuit of politics by other means’ especially when you have consultations that result in mass opposition being ignored.
Leave violence to Antifa.
If there are no candidates who stand for what you believe then put yourself forwards. Yes the chances of winning are slim, but you have to give people a chance to choose who represents them.
This was likely staged. The woman had to have known about the roadblock, and could have taken an alternate route, and actually saved time. Yet she chose to waste time making a scene and arguing with people so she could make a video of it. Fun times.
We live on a road that people use for a “short cut” into or out of town. If you speed on it, you might save a few seconds. But the smart thing is to simply take the highway our road leads to, where they can speed without endangering people’s and animal’s lives who live here. I wish our road could be posted for local traffic only.
I saw no violence. I just saw folks gently aiding mentally disabled people off of the traffic lanes..
For the record: It’s now been 7 hours since I pointed out that this article is entirely false.
The video clearly shows the “No Motor Vehicles” sign.
And yet the article has still not been corrected and still implies that this is about Oxford’s variable traffic controls for green purposes.
It is not.
This is fake news and you know it. For shame.
MCourtney, please go easy on the bold text. Its overuse does you no favours.
Fair point.
I’m still right. This is fake news.
It is part of Oxford’s Low Traffic Networks. They have been fairly recently put in place under the pretence of various Greenies’ agendas. However, they are just a chance for the Council to grab money by issuing fines.
Call the police, then.
These barriers have been set up by the council to enforce LTNs (or Low Traffic Networks). Hence the sign saying no cars or motorbikes. There are legally enforceable fines for driving through the barriers.
What isn’t legal is for those daft hippies to announce they are “enforcing” the law. They have no rights to enforce a law. They are not the police.
Personally, I think the LTNs are totally unnecessary and just a money raising exercise for the council. The daft hippies need to be told to f*ck off.
I’ve been trying to explain this. Apparently I’m a mike pence republican for saying it, now. I don’t even know what that means.
It means you’re a right-winger politically. Very far right.
But not an anti-democratic extremist who breaks the law like the driver of the car or those guys who stormed your Capitol building.
Communists consider socialists to be right.
Anyone further to the right is far right.
I’m left wing. I’m not American. It’s not “my” capitol building.
Those people broke the law by blocking the highway. The road traffic act 1988 is very clear on why only the police can enforce traffic law.
From her accent, it sounds like the woman trying to get through the checkpoint was of Slavic origin. In Wokeville, England, couldn’t someone accuse the blockaders of xenophobia?
Regarding Tom Halla’s comment below, before automobiles were invented, people got around using horses, which required daily feeding and frequent cleaning of their stables, as well as obedience training for colts.
If a large, congested city such as London did away with automobiles, what would the streets be like if each car was replaced by a horse? They would be like open sewers full of horse manure, with the associated transmission of diseases, to which most city dwellers have lost their natural immunity. Rodeo on the roads?
If I’m not allowed to use as many roads as previously I’d like some of my road tax to be refunded.
If you live in the UK, no one pays road tax. That was abolished in 1930s.
The upkeep of roads is paid for out of general taxation, which everyone, car driver or not, pays for.
If you’re not allowed to use the road then it should be ripped out
Or at least pedestrianised
Time to break out the ball bats.
I like reading a lot of the articles on this site but this post is mis-leading and that has shown in some of the comments.
Oxford has not implemented the traffic zones yet due to the Botley Road bridge being re-built by Network Rail, already 6 months behind schedule I don’t see the traffic zones up and running until 2025.
https://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/residents/roads-and-transport/connecting-oxfordshire/traffic-filters
See “When will the trial start?”
As an Oxfordshire resident I’ll be allowed 25 permits per year, I note they haven’t mentioned any cost but I’m sure they’ll be charging for them…….
One thing is for sure, they are implementing their anti-car policy across the county despite not having a majority support. £8M spent changing signs when the roads are more potholes than tarmac…..