What's going on in Oxford,why have locals voted for this

[Grumpycat6]

From October,or whenever it starts
My DH is going to have to pay £5 a day ,that's £100 a month
Just to get to work
He can't go by train or bus because he starts and finishes times when they don't run .
Apparently from what I understand this was voted in at the local council elections.or the person who wanted to put this scheme in place was voted in ,.
This is going to effect the price of houses ,it's going to put people off moving to Oxford.
With this in mind I can't understand how this was agreed

Sometimes it can take longer than 15 minutes to just walk from the bus stops near the old Boswells to Westgate because you have to battle through hords of tourists 😂😂

For your information, plenty of Oxford residents have done something practical about it. The council is very pigheaded and doesn't seem to want to listen to residents about this matter. No matter that several businesses are already struggling because of the debacle with the Botley Road.

Wow - do you really think everybody in Oxford is 'minted' as you put it?! You couldn't be more wrong if you tried. There are many people who are really struggling.
What a narrow minded comment.

To be fair, it's always been that way - especially in the summer when the foreign students come over in their hoards. Even back in the 80s/early 90s, it'd be a nightmare going into the centre of Oxford in June/July.

London has a bloody Tube service, for goodness sake! Oxford doesn't even have a particularly good bus service, let alone a Tube that can take us from one part of the city to the other.
Like I've said previously - Oxford needs to sort out its diabolical bus service for ALL, not just those in the centre of Oxford. If people are to be able to carry on working in their jobs etc, they need a better bus service for those who live in villages on the outskirts of the city.

it is oxford ? that said my apologies

It may be Oxford, but we have poor areas. I'm so fed up with people thinking it is a rich place, it really isn't! Yes, the North of the city may have some pricey houses, but other parts have got council estates, Blackbird Leys, Rose Hill, Barton, Northway to name but a few. The cost of housing/rents is higher than many parts of the country.
We don't get the premium that some in London get on their wages because they live somewhere with higher costs of living and yet we still have those higher costs of living.

@Swirlythingy2025 it might have improved in recent years but the Blackbird Leys area of Oxford used to be a very "poor" area.
Considered to be one of the "roughest" areas of Oxfordshire apparently.
Not all of Oxford is posh.

Yeah in my medium sized town (which is near Manchester ) most people can’t get away with not driving. How on earth can they be discouraging people to drive when they have such a poor bus service? And a lot of the high street stores have been moved to retail parks which are even further out.

I manage because I WFH and live 5 minutes from the train station and I tend to get the train to Manchester or London when I socialise - or my partner drives us around when he’s over on weekends . And I get my food shopping online.

But if you’re someone who wants to explore or work in your town the bus service just won’t do. Occasionally when I’ve had to go to the hospital I’ve got in a taxi. When my partner is over it’s like a whole new experience as he drives and we get to see so much more! Relying on the bus is extremely limiting and unsuitable for people in some areas. The UK needs to do better.

And no cycling isn’t suitable, safe or desirable for everyone for a multitude of reasons.

but how do you define poor because im assuming people are more affluent than eg say people from nottingham etc

Blackbird Leys was built as a massive council estate.
It used to be known as a very rough area with high crime levels (there were riots in the 90s).
Poverty and crime usually come together unfortunately.

but being rich and crime also go together otherwise you would have honest run banks with no fines etc

No. They're really not! The average wage in Blackbird Leys is around £26,300 a year, the average wage in Nottingham is £36,400 and £37,500. It took me a couple of minutes to see that on Google.
You may have this lovely image of Oxford being full of universities and people who spend their summers punting on the river and the like, but, I can assure you, people here struggle too.

fair points,

Clearly not enough has been done though if they’re still going ahead? Oxford council isn’t any different to any other.

I live just outside of Cambridge - we have exactly the same problems! London may have a tube service but both Oxford and Cambridge and the local areas are extremely cycleable. One of the major reasons our bus service is so shit is because the buses are stuck in traffic all the bloody time and the buses are run via independent contractors. Bus franchising has removed the independent contractor nonsense, but we need serious ideas as to how we solve the congestion.

I'm fed up of "but we're not London!" arguments. London didn't get a functional public transport system by accident. At the moment we have the worst of all worlds - people demanding that something must be done but oh no, not like that, nothing that will make me change the way I do things!!

Cambridge didn't get a congestion charge and now has traffic that is worse than ever and crappy buses. Pretty much every city and town that has introduced road pricing freely admits they would never, ever go back.

The consultation only opened yesterday...

They are two different issues. London has congestion charge and ULEZ (ultra low emissions charge).

Sounds like it’s been spoken about for a while from this thread though?

It was raised about 2 weeks ago for the first time and discussed at a council meeting on 17th June where the council resolved to put it to public consultation. Not long.

But the issue is that the measures introduced by the Council so far are so poorly planned that they have actually INCREASED the traffic issues! Which is also slowing the buses down! But they can’t admit the initial schemes haven’t worked so are trying to patch it up by implementing another scheme, which could equally make the problem even worse. There is no proper strategy behind it.
(They are NOT improving public transport.
I've lived in Oxford for 30+ years and walk, cycle, taxi, bus and drive).

Totally sidetracking the thread but this came up on my Instagram reels about the derelict Debenhams in Bristol which I thought might be of interest

www.instagram.com/reel/DLFpRlrov-w/?igsh=Z2huMmw3eHVmd2My

The consultation only began 2 days ago - we've got nearly 6 weeks to make our feelings known.

Better ramp it up then 😉

The consultation may only have been open 2 weeks but I’m sure that it didn’t come as much of a surprise? PP seem to suggest that it had been on the cards for a while, and all councils will have green targets they have to meet.

Oxford has wanted to basically charge us for driving around our city for a while now, yes, it's true. However, this 'temporary' congestion charge was only mentioned a week or two ago.
I get that they've got targets to meet, but, the way they've gone about this is going to hit so many people and businesses hard. Many businesses are already struggling with the work that's being done on the Botley Road which is half the reason for the bad traffic anyway, so they're just adding insult to injury at this point.
If you don't live in the area, you really have no idea about what it's been like for the past 2 years. Businesses have closed because of the council's utter incompetence. To now suggest that we should be paying and then claiming it's temporary, which we all know is council speak for 'permanent', is galling, to say the very least.