Essay by Eric Worrall
First published JoNova; Ordinary residents of trial cities will only be permitted 100 days per year outside their 15 minute region. But special people get a free pass.
Labour council brings in ‘perverse’ 15-minute driving rules – it could roll out across UK
Labour ministers have drawn up plans to hand councils powers to bring in 15-minute cities branded ‘Stalinist’ and ‘perverse’.
By Aaron Newbury
10:18, Sun, Jan 25, 2026 Updated: 10:41, Sun, Jan 25, 2026Sir Keir Starmer will introduce 15-minute cities across the country with critics slamming them as ‘Stalinist’ and ‘perverse’ , it has been revealed.
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15-minute cities are a new concept based on the idea that a person living in one will be able to access everything they need within a quarter of an hour by walking or cycling. They are sometimes accompanied by restrictions on motorists.
Oxford, which is actively implementing a plan to introduce the scheme, has seen its local authority plot to divide the city into six “15-minute neighbourhoods”. This would see drivers needing to secure a permit for residents so that they could travel for 100 days for free through the traffic filters in the city.
A separate permit would allow just 25 days of free travel, with drivers hit with fines should they move around the city beyond those allocated days.
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Read more: https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/cars/2162240/labour-council-perverse-15-minute-driving-rules-roll-out-across-uk-oxford
Advocates have defended the scheme;
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For some conspiracy theorists, this has come to mean an attack on freedom, arguing that people will be restricted from leaving their homes and forced to live within a 15-minute radius of where they live.
This has been widely debunked.
Nicholas Boys Smith, the chairman of urban planning think tank Create Streets, has written widely on the subject.
He said: “If you live in any neighbourhood built before the 1950s then the chances are you already do live in a place with some or many of the characteristics of a 15-minute city and are able (more or less) to walk to the pub, to the corner shop or to a nearby school. If you are richer, then you are more likely to live in such a place.”
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Other users asked: “Why is having amenities near people a bad thing?” Or described the concept as “a dream”.
Oxfordshire County Council confirmed to Big Issue that the proposed traffic filters trial has nothing to do with the concept of 15-minute cities.
Councillor Andrew Gant, Oxfordshire County Council’s cabinet member for transport management, told Big Issue: “I read the article in the Daily Express and my jaw nearly hit the floor. I mean, it is a quite extraordinary misrepresentation of what this scheme does.
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Read more: https://www.bigissue.com/news/environment/15-minute-cities-sharron-davies-right-said-fred/
Why would anyone choose to travel more than 15 minutes from home?
Because something they need is more than 15 minutes away, of course.
If everything you need is within 15 minutes of home, lucky you. But if everything you need is the wrong side of one of those “traffic filters”, this new law is going to hurt.
If your kid’s school is the wrong side of one of these “traffic filters”, does this mean you need to find your kid a new school? Like the awful school just down the road which you rejected in favour of the 20 minute drive to the better quality school?
Do you now have to put up with the overpriced corner store, when there is a much better supermarket 20 minutes drive from your house?
The suggestion people should use more public transport or cycle more to avoid the new 15 minute city restrictions is absurd. Not only is British weather cold and rainy much of the time, from 2024 to 2025 there was a 10% uptick in bike robberies in Oxford. Driving in a locked vehicle is more comfortable and far safer than using public transport or riding a bike down lonely tracks, especially for women returning home from late shift work.
These new laws restricting travel are a recipe for hurting ordinary people, people who aren’t well connected enough to get a special pass.
If local governments had attempted to actually create 15 minute cities, by working to improve the availability of local amenities, I would not have had a problem with that. But there would still be lots of people who have to travel further than 15 minutes, for work or school or taking care of elderly relatives, or any number of other reasons.
Punishing people who are already doing it tough, in the hope magic 15 minute eco-cities will somehow arise out of the cruelty being inflicted on ordinary people, that’s just nasty.
