Oxford, UK: The Great Reset in action. Wall-less prison for inhabitants

@Carissimi That was my reaction at first.

Then I read both the OP and the source carefully.....

It is no more than a scheme to limit using cars within the town! Walter is talking up from his own party-political views and fear of officialdom, a plan he'd read about in some magazine that looks itself politically very self-centered.

The County Council wants people to use alternative ways to get about within Oxford as much as possible. it might be a poorly-designed scheme but that is its only intention!

I have since learnt that slightly similar schemes have worked in quite a number of European cities for a while with no serious problems. Other places do it by charging you to drive within the towns, fees based on vehicle class.

The notion that it is intended to "imprison" people within their immediate neighbourhoods is utter rhubarb.

@ArishMell Unfortunately the British press does not agree with you. The Telegraph appears quite incensed about this power move.

[c=003BB2] [b]The green war on cars is about to take a mad new turn[/b]

[i]The introduction of "traffic filters" is what you might expect in a totalitarian state, not Oxford[/i]

[u]ZOE STRIMPEL11 December 2022 • 8:00am[/u]

One tends not to associate words like “roadblocks” with ordinary daily life in Britain. Roadblocks, like checkpoints, smack of unstable countries with excessively present military forces and, usually, bribery. And while we may not have the bribery bit, thanks to the increasingly dictatorial eco-socialist types running more and more of the country we do risk getting roadblocks in all but name.

Last week, Oxfordshire county council unveiled its chilling new diktat that camera-based “traffic filters” will be instituted in Oxford city centre to prevent some motorists from driving through it. In previous months at least one of the council leaders had implied that theplan was going aheadwhether people liked it or not (greensters have never been particularly keen on the spirit of democracy). The scheme is as Byzantine as it is controlling, part of a vision which involves the division of Oxford into six “15-minute” neighbourhoods.

It might well stop many residents, including the elderly, from getting from A to B – but if B happens to be beyond your quadrant, the enforcement of a communitarian “inclusive” and “sustainable” vision must come first. Mystifyingly, theroadblocksare about “making sure you have the community centre which has all of those essential needs, the bottle of milk, pharmacy, GP, schools which you need to have within a five-minute neighbourhood”. It’s not clear how stopping people being able to move freely about their city will somehow magically produce efficient GP surgeries and schools within the perimeter of a 15-minute drive for all.

Bottles of milk evoke a jolly, pastoral paradise of times gone; perhaps with a man delivering them on a horse-drawn cart as in days of old. But the great thing about life today, not least in a liberal democracy, is that people can choose a bottle of milk, or they can drive to a Tesco superstore and grab their milk – and numerous other things that they want – in the tranquility of its vast temperature controlled aisles.

No longer (if that superstore happens to sit in the centre of Oxford). Welcome to eco-friendly checkpoint Britain.

[/c]

@WalterF That's a bit exciteable for The Telegraph!

WHO though has actually proposed physical road-blocks? Traffic-counters using ANPR cameras yes, to limit [i]driving vehicles[/i], and I don't like the proposed ideas much either... but has anyone genuinely proposed controlling [i]people[/i] simply moving about the city?

My town's main shopping street is barred to motor vehicles, with appropriate exceptions, in the day. Although there are probably few residents there, in flats above the shops, and nowhere for them to park in that road anyway, is that wrong too?

Note what SunshineGirl points out - many of Oxford's residents already use other means normally.

@ArishMell Obviously, all who travel on foot or by bike are not affected.

That leaves an awful lot of others. Those who drive to work, spending more than 15 min in their car. The elderly who need vehicles to get to their GP or other appointments. The parents who drive children to schools. Or visitng one's preferred out-of-town superstore.

A measure imposed on many who will be unwilling. And, as usual, without the slightest consultation.

Personally, I find this worrying. But the Oxford public is not happy. Can we all be put in the far-right, tin hat, youtube-based conspiracy basket?

@WalterF Of couse the Oxfordians are not happy about it, and that might be reflected in the next Council elections.

No of course we can't all be put into one basket, far-right, far-left or in any other direction. I questioned the sort of problems you raised, in my first answer but I separate the intention from the likely effects in practice, and apart from wondering what electoral results there may be I throw out the political stuff.

I was trying to tease what the councillors really mean, from what that VN magazine and [i]The Telegraph[/i] tell us to think they mean. It seems to me be a plan made with the best of intentions but not properly considered, and then badly reported.

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I do think the problem of out-of-town supermarkets is one coming home to roost. For decades they were allowed, even encouraged, and they are still, but they rely on their customers driving to and from them theoretically once a week (hence that phrase,' the weekly shop', which is as in bad in assumption as it is in grammar). Some are very long way from many of their likely customers, too: Cribbs Causeway for example is several miles from the middle of Bristol, whose Council now seems very anti-car indeed.

They are not compatible with traffic reduction schemes based on directly cutting car use, but are certainly good for congestion-charge fund-raising. Either way they add to the very problem of traffic that the planners are trying to decrease! While ruining the town-centres: that scheme in Oxford might redress some of that imbalance, but it does seem an unnecessarily harsh and bureaucratic method.

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If nothing else it might encourage people to use their cars more efficiently so less expensively, but I'd have thought the simple rise in motoring costs generally would do a lot of that. The truth is that we have all become so dependent on owning a car that it has created a circle of dependency bringing along with the traffic -jams and pollution, the loss of town-centre shops, public-transport, rural services, and so on. I can live without my car through most of the week, but many others in my area do not have that choice, and the County Council has just destroyed a bus service round one sizeable suburban area, leaving it with no alternative to taxis or private cars if you can't walk or cycle to town. (Financial cuts).

It is unfortunately inevitable that something has to give eventually. I don't like what Oxfordshire County Council appears to be doing, I think it too complicated, inept and heavy-handed; but I fear that such plans, congestion-charging and the like will become more common.

It is not intended to spoil our fun or obstruct medical appointments and school or work, but to make us all think more carefully about where, when and how to use our i.c-engined cars. While moaning about the traffic-jams to which we add. Whether it will work or merely anger everyone in Oxford for no useful result, is another matter.

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Following a conversation with friends in Somerset, I looked up the gov.uk list of congestion / clean-air towns,, and found mine is exempt in them; but these friends have to think very carefully about visiting Bristol in their work. One said his van would cost £30 a day, so it is not worth finding new customers there as most are private householders. The permanent traders in such cities will suffer badly and many might well simply give up; making life harder and costlier for the residents needing their services.

Allegedly Bristol City Council offers loans to buy new vehicles, as if that is likely to be an attractive or useful proposition. It can apply only to those who can afford a car-loan anyway, and who would still have to sell the existing one far from the city to have any chance of a reasonable return!