To be concerned about this....Oxford **You tube channel from Katie Hopkins** Title edited by MNHQ

[TarasHarp55]

fb.watch/hOHYM5ObFs/

Should we be concerned about this? It all seems very "Hunger Games", or is it a good thing? Would like to hear opinions. I don't normally like KH but she does seem to have a point.

Presumably there are reasonable caveats for those who work across the city and those who have caring responsibilities outside of their zone?

What have service businesses said about this?
I can't see a plumber, or delivery service sticking to a 15 min zone. Costs will rise in some sectors. Daft berkish anti-business idea.

What they need to do is pay per drive. This has been proven to reduce traffic by up to 30%.

I'm annoyed I unwittingly clicked on katie Hopkins youtube channel as the op didn't make it clear.

I disagree with this plan. But it is hardly hunger games.
It will mean many people will be very badly affected as their car journeys are going to take much longer and the public transport is still very poor. I would not live there.

We have similar where I live. Great for cyclists and those who can work from home, don't live on a main road and have no caring responsibilities, mobility issues or need to transport much around, shit for everybody else.

@FourTeaFallOut There are no caveats for people who work outside the City. They can drive in but it will take a long time. There are exemptions for tradespeople and carers.

Just a reminder of her comments about immigrants www.itv.com/news/2015-04-18/katie-hopkins-compares-migrants-to-cockroaches-and-suggests-using-gunships-to-stop-them-crossing-the-mediterranean

This is so much bullshit & I'd expect people to know that, seeing as it's coming out of her mouth, frankly.

She exists to stir up shit. End of.

KH is a racist crackpot

YABU to link to Katie Hopkins without a warning for those who dont wish to encourage bullshit. .

This has already been discussed at length with lots of input from locals (various opinions) and also one of the local councillors.

Yes traffic is going to be restricted and it will be a massive nuisance and hold up all the buses. The theory is that everyone will give up driving so the buses can actually move. Will believe that when we see it!

Previous thread

Katie Hopkins spouting absolute bollocks on Facebook, let me see , let me see....💩

No one is stopping you walking, cycling, getting a bus to the next segment. Its aimed at encouraging people to use public transport when moving between areas of the city centre or if going from one suburb to an opposite one going out to the ring road rather than ploughing though the city centre. They're just trying new measures to tackle the gridlock. Having spent a lot of time in Oxford I don't think I would ever bother to drive between the segments anyway as it would take hours. I would get the bus, walk or drive out of town and enter from the other side...just like the measures they're implementing. Its only between certain hours, there's no 'lock down', there's no ban on leaving your zone, there are exemptions for carers, blue badge holders, emergency workers etc. All residents get a permit to allow them to pass between zone free of charge 100 times a year, local villages get a permit for passing between the zones something like 20 times a year. If you read the council website for the facts rather than that ridiculous woman's rants it seems quite well thought out if a bit radical. I'm sure I would feel differently if I lived there but it's not that dissimilar to the congestion charges you see in most big cities other than there's been quite a bit more thought put into making it work around local peoples needs.

Oxford as a city is already heavily divided by the Thames. You can only cross it on the northern bypass, Botley Bridge, Folly Bridge, Donnington Bridge and the southern bypass. The bypass is already a nightmare at rush hour and adding in anyone who needs to regularly drive for work will mean is going to get even worse. No allowances for parents travelling for SEN school provision, no allowances for anyone living outside the city who need to travel in for work, and only minor improvements to the bus services.

www.oxford.gov.uk/news/article/2324/statement_on_the_approval_of_six_trial_traffic_filters_in_oxford

The current congestion is so bad that it is making buses unviable, we cannot allow more bus routes to be cut. 30% of Oxford households don’t own a car, and depend on buses.

So you can go where you want as long as it's not by car.

@Han99 I read a letter from residents who live in the city centre in a gated apartment block who explained how it is going to be a very long journey for any of them to leave the city by car as they can't go the quickest roads out and have no exemption passes.

Will the people without cars be able to "sell" their 100 trips that the people with cars get?

What Oxford needs is better, smaller, more frequent electric buses. Those massive double deckers blundering around teh centre of a narrow twisty city are just wrong. Tiny electric buses like they have in green cities like Ljubliana would be perfect for Oxford.

Oxford has a high proportion of residents who are students. They tend to be young and fit and rarely have cars anyway.
You can go where you want if you can walk or cycle the route. It will affect many ordinary people negatively.

There is also the St Ebbs council estate right in the centre which will be restricted to one route out only unless they use one of their day passes, which means if they work in the other direction and need a car it will be about a 15 mile diversion to go all the way out to the ring round, round and back in. If you are reliant on a car due to mobility issues it's going to be a real issue for people living there

How is requiring cars to drive the long way round remotely “hunger games”?

It sounds great to me, I’d like to see something similar developed in the city where I live. Walking and cycling short distances (which we already do) would be so much safer if there weren’t so many people driving the same distance.

See, these bits worry me. there are exemptions for carers, blue badge holders

You don't often just become a blue badge holder. The joy of some/ perhaps most disabilities is that they take you by inches and your life can be impaired without meeting the threshold for a blue badge or before you are willing to accept it.

Oh i'm sure there's going to be massive inconvenience for some (like the conhestion charges) and it does seem very radical I agree. Im not saying its a perfect solution at all. But the suggestion that it's a 'lockdown' to control us all and the implication that we all have '15 minutes of freedom' is what annoys me. It's just the constant conspiracy theories without looking at the facts. Not saying it's a perfect solution at all but it's not a lockdown.

@Han99 I agree the conspiracy theory and hyperbole is wearing.

It's not a lockdown at all, but it really is going to cause issues. For example, schools are already massively struggling with recruitment - if people have to massively change their commuting, potentially making it impossible with childcare arrangements, this is going to get worse.

As far as I know it is not linked to school place allocation, and nor do all schools have affordable flexible wraparound care. This needs to be in place to support - to either facilitate longer journey times on foot, with tired small children, or to assist parents who need to drive on to work after and will have significantly longer journeys if their child is already at school in a different zone.

The main hospital is in one of the zones, and access to it from the ring road is already absolutely horrendous.