Oxford 'climate lockdowns' and '15-minute city' - can anyone local explain their views on this?

[unsureatthispoint]

This news has been published in several media outlets and being talked about ATM.

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.

Mr Enright said: "It is 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 a 15-minute neighbourhood."

The aim is to reduce traffic in the city centre and make city living more pleasant, but critics say the plans will negatively affect businesses and the city centre's economy.

Here's the link

www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/23073992.traffic-filters-will-divide-city-six-15-minute-neighbourhoods-agrees-highways-councillor/

Are local people aware of this and what's their take on it?

I think virtually everyone agrees that we need to become greener and that fewer (petrol/diesel) car journeys is part of that. The bit that is unreasonable about this scheme is that it takes away the ability to drive (yes I know certain circuitous routes in gridlocked traffic will still be possible) but doesn’t provide any alternative or even a path to an alternative - that alternative might be better public transport, more jobs in Oxfordshire outside Oxford, encouraging wfh, more electric vehicles etc. People need to be able to do basic stuff like work and get their kids to school. Currently for many the only way to do that in Oxfordshire is by car.

There’s also maybe a democratic deficit where Oxford City Council make these decisions and are elected by people living in the city, but how Oxford operates is also of critical for people living outside the city for whom Oxford is their nearest city and the place they go for work, hospital appointments etc, and those people don’t get a vote.

@DuncanEnright any comments?

Sorry that should say ‘of critical IMPORTANCE’

That's going to depend on other expenses I expect: note my point about dependents. But feel free to prove that there's sufficient affordable housing for everyone in Oxford earning over the national median wage who needs it, however you consider best. You seem very sure that it can't be possible, so I'm open to you actually demonstrating that.

Ah, so you are saying that if one chooses to spend ones income on expensive holidays instead of housing, then it is not possible to afford housing in Oxford.
I can see how that would be a problem, doesn't that though apply to any income level in any place one might try and live?

No, although if that's something that's come up in your no doubt extensive research on the matter do feel free to include it with explanation. As I say, I'm willing to consider the evidence that in fact nobody on above median wage in Oxford ever struggles to afford housing in the city in any way you'd like to present it.

Florenz - a lot of people live without cars

Not sure why there's an argument going on over housing. I lived just outside oxford (Botley) for 6 years and despite two salaries higher than the UK's average wage we had no hope of buying in either botley or oxford. Our rent went up every year, we had a one bed flat, no garden, no bath (shower only), kitchen/living room combo, absolutely tiny flat and it's being rented out at 1200/month.
The commute from Botley to oxford was awful (and obv set to get worse) despite it being relatively close.
Buying and increasingly renting are almost certainly out of reach for average incomes in oxford itself. I'd love to live in actual oxford and eg walk to work etc but it's just not possible

@Devoutspoken not in the small villages without or with limited public transport. We can't get our children to school on foot due to no pavements on the roads to the villages that have a school. The roads are poorly maintained and narrow so not safe on a bike. Most of the roads round here weren't even gritted.

The truth of the matter is that Oxford city is expensive. The property in Ambrosden isn’t Bicester. As us locals know! It’s nearly 2 miles from any station. 4 x £70,000 gives around £280,000 to spend but that will mostly buy 2 bedroom properties. Below that sum and there’s not much choice. None of you need 3 bedrooms. So people need to travel in. Bicester works if you can get to the staton and the station at Oxford is convenient. Or if you are on a bus route.

For people in Oxford, the new zoning system is a nightmare.

There is a housing crisis in oxford. Or at least that's been the justification for taking huge areas of land out of the green belt around oxford to develop for housing. Oxford hasn't met it's own housing targets for about the last 20 years and is completely dependent on the other surrounding local authorities to provide housing for it.

These same areas have had cuts to bus services and significant roadworks but can be too far to cycle. 8 miles on country roads with blind bends and 60 limits is not fun.

The bus gates will also do nothing to address the traffic coming in from the north as there is no bus lane or cycle lane through Sunmertown which is often gridlocked.

My solution would be a congestion charge of a minimum £5 day with extras for polluting vehicles and exemptions for disabled badge holders. The money to be spent on public transport improvements.

@jgw1 , I’ve appreciated and agreed with your earlier posts on this thread, but if you’re implying it’s easy to find affordable housing in Oxford, that’s wrong. Housing here is a nightmare, and it’s entirely possible, as other posters have said, to be a professional couple with two incomes and not able to get a deposit together to get onto the housing ladder. Rent is very expensive.

In the case of academics, people can be employed for many years on short-term contract followed by short-term contract (academia can be very exploitative in that regard), and that makes it harder to get a mortgage.

DH and I have had two incomes for many years, but were only able to get a mortgage quite recently, due to an inheritance from a deceased parent. Most people I know who own property in Oxford bought their first homes twenty years ago, before the property market rose astronomically in price, or they had help from parents as we did. I know virtually no one who has been able to get a mortgage for a house in Oxford solely on the basis of their own income.
So I can understand why people choose to live outside the city and commute. But not everyone who lives in the city is well-off either. Lots of permanent residents (i.e people other than students) rent because they can’t afford to buy, lots of residents live in council housing and so on.

It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take measures to stop the city being choked by traffic – we should! – but to imply that everyone can live within walking/cycling distance of work if they so choose is incorrect.

@XenoBitch

I would never say that in person interaction can be entirely replaced. However I do think it's a shame that so many of the positive lessons from lockdown have been lost. There was lots of talk of a new normal, but we have just returned to the same habits that are damaging for the environment and health.

Lockdown showed that virtually all work, education, leisure and culture can take place from home. Yet we are back to roads bursting with traffic and people constantly gallivanting about.

Lockdown was a really positive time for us as a family with more tike together and less stress.

Personally I would like to see monthly 'earth days' where people are instructed to stay in their local areas to reduce emissions. The barriers originally proposed in Oxford could be a part of that.

Lockdown showed that virtually all work, education, leisure and culture can take place from home. Yet we are back to roads bursting with traffic and people constantly gallivanting about.

At what cost though? Do you really think children should only be educated at home? How are parents supposed to work? Regarding culture, surely you don't think watching someone on a screen replaces going to the theatre or a concert?

Lockdown was a really positive time for us as a family with more tike together and less stress.

Bully for you. Are you so caught up in your own little world that you don't realise how hard it was for many people.

Personally I would like to see monthly 'earth days' where people are instructed to stay in their local areas to reduce emissions. The barriers originally proposed in Oxford could be a part of that

Jesus Christ, 'instructed to stay in their local areas'? You really do want to live in a dictatorship don't you. You crack on staying in your local area and living your life through Zoom but don't expect everyone else to live that way.

If I were to say that finding affordable housing in Oxford was easy, I would very obviously be wrong.
The point I was making was that the poster who said that it is not possible for someone on an average income to live in Oxford is wrong.

Lockdown was a really positive time for us as a family with more tike together and less stress.

Lucky you. I was a key worker so wasn't trapped at home like many were. I still found myself climbing the walls and was cripplingly lonely.

Personally I would like to see monthly 'earth days' where people are instructed to stay in their local areas to reduce emissions. The barriers originally proposed in Oxford could be a part of that

😆😆

I'd take about as much notice of those as I do of the other earth days. The days of the govt getting compliance for things like that are long gone - except for the 'lockdown should have been longer and harder' wankers.

Can you tell us which poster you think said that? I do hope it wasn't me.

Personally I would like to see monthly 'earth days' where people are instructed to stay in their local areas to reduce emissions.

I stay in my local area most days. It would really piss me off if the one day I wanted to travel out of it coincided with one of your proposed “Earth Days”.

I did enjoy my lockdown breaches with loved ones who live in the local area, I must say. Never realised I was being an environmentalist when I did it.

OFFS - I'm aware that some people need cars but some people don't, their world would not 'grind to a halt'without them as one poster suggested

All of this, absolutely. I hate driving and would far rather use buses but adequate services simply do not exist from where we live. If the proposal were a congestion charge for all with additional
charges for diesel vehicles, HGVs, sports cars etc and reductions for hybrids and electric vehicles, with the proceeds going to improve public transport I would be thrilled. I’m not upset about the idea of reducing car use. I’m upset about the fact that the current proposals are likely to mean people — particularly women caring for children —living in Oxford’s satellite villages are going to lose their livelihoods because getting to work is going to become so difficult.

Why do cars need to be so big?

I observed as I walked to the shops today that the majority of cars that came past me had a single occupant. Surely therefore they could be much smaller?

This is the difficulty, it's a policy being implemented without the necessary infrastructure.

One might well ask why the government is spending billions on HS2, for not much benefit, but local transport is consistently neglected.

If as there may well be, a problem with having joinedup transport infrastructure, then that is due to the strange way that central government will fund some local projects and not others. Local councils don't have much choice in the order they do things as they can only spend the money on particular things as directed by central government.

No lockdown showed that we absolutely need in person education and socialising, and access to in person leisure, arts and cultural facilities. The education, developmental and mental health consequences of lockdown have been dire and the thought of being locked up again gives me chills.