Oxford’s proposed congestion charge – the reaction

Monday’s announcement of a temporary congestion charge for Oxford passed almost without notice as city residents staged a collective shrug.

Just kidding. The proposals for an interim fix to Oxford’s traffic issues have lit up the airwaves and social media (and our inbox). So what are people saying?

Labour-controlled Oxford City Council, the local Labour Party, and Labour MP Anneliese Dodds put out three similar statements. Cllr Susan Brown, leader of the City Council, took the opportunity to talk up an Oxford-only unitary council:

“There has been no engagement with businesses, residents or the City Council until today - yet again the city is being done to rather than engaged with in preparing transport proposals. We are concerned that this scheme allows people who can afford to do so to buy access to our streets. Those who can’t will struggle. Doing nothing is not an option. We need a full review of transport policies with a view to tackling congestion in our city. This is something a Greater Oxford Council would do.”

(Oxford City Council has discussed a congestion charge in the past, but the council’s website has been broken for several days now so we can’t report what was concluded.)

Oxford Labour echoed these words, adding a bullet-pointed wishlist:

What does Oxford Labour want?
- No half-baked, rushed-through traffic plans
- Concrete plans for making public transport cheaper and more accessible
- Funding for better bus services, not vague promises
- Action on private school traffic
- Frequent hospital site shuttles from P&Rs for staff and patients
- Delivering the Cowley Branch Line

Oxford East MP Anneliese Dodds issued a video on social media criticising the plans, saying that “When I speak with local residents, they say to me they want buses that are cheaper.” (The Government increased the bus fare cap from £2 to £3 in October; Anneliese Dodds attended Cabinet at the time but was not a voting Cabinet minister.) She pointed out that a congestion charge wasn’t suggested in the local elections “only a few weeks ago”.

The Liberal Democrats, who control Oxfordshire County Council, didn’t take this lying down. Their deputy leader Neil Fawcett retorted:

“In February, the City Leader 'called for Oxfordshire County Council, the highways authority, to take action now, both to tackle congestion and speed up bus journeys in our city'. She's now very unhappy that the County Council is doing just that!”

In an ‘I agree with Nick’ moment, he found support from an unlikely ally, new Conservative leader Liam Walker:

“Neil is right here. Labour called for action on congestion and are now unhappy about the congestion charge plan. They voted for bus gates then didn’t like them. They supported LTNs then claimed they didn’t when voters got annoyed. Labour are all over the place!”

The Conservative response emphasised “there is no guarantee it will even work”, with Liam Walker saying:

“I have always said that expansion of the Zero Emissions Zone should be a priority. Use the income generated from this to scrap parking charges at Park & Ride sites, keep fares low, and actually make getting on a bus both affordable and attractive. There are so many exemptions to this congestion charge scheme that I fear this will make little difference.”

Green councillor Emily Kerr said Labour’s opposition to the proposals flew in the face of “the recent Labour-sponsored Citizens Assembly which voted 74% in favour of a congestion charge”. Green city councillor Alex Powell said “I welcome this proposal – it responds to the situation we have found ourselves in with so many delays to the Botley Road works”, while newly elected Green county councillor Emma Garnett said pricing should be based on car size: “A small 3-door car should not be paying the same as an SUV.”

Meanwhile, the Independent Oxford Alliance, who won one seat in the recent elections, said “Just one month after an election, where nothing like this was mentioned, Oxfordshire’s Unliberal Undemocratics propose a fee to offset the Council’s incompetence in managing the road network.”

Campaign groups

Oxford’s cycling campaign Cyclox supported the congestion charge proposals:

“We can’t leave things as they are; if nothing is done the city will grind to a halt under the weight of car traffic. We cannot build more roads to magic congestion away. The problem cannot wait until the traffic filters go in in late 2026. We need to find ways to encourage greater use of buses and active travel now.”

Umbrella group the Coalition for Healthy Streets & Active Travel agreed:

“The new proposal appears a good way to get buses and vital services moving again in the interim. We're pleased that people and organisations will have six weeks to review the new proposals, and after more than a decade to think, this is the time for anyone to suggest alternatives to fix the traffic problem. By late 2027, we could have a view of the effects of 'doing nothing', a congestion charge, and experimental traffic filters, so a decision could be based on what worked best.”

The Oxford Business Action Group said “During a cost of living crisis and with unprecedented operating costs for businesses, it's difficult to grasp why the council is deterring customers by making it harder to get around Oxford.”

The Association of British Drivers said Oxford was being destroyed by “reckless LibDem fanatics”. They shared a petition set up by independent Cowley councillor Saj Malik and Twitter account Reconnecting Oxford, which proposed “an alternative would be to scrap the Cowley and East Oxford LTNs, instead of charging us a deeply unfair toll”.

A brief editorial note on campaign groups, whether pro- or anti-. Anyone can claim to be a “grassroots campaign group”. That might be a registered charity with 5000 members, or a clever PR campaign by a local business, or one guy with a Twitter account and time on his hands. Cyclox, for example, is a registered charity with around 600 paid-up members. The Oxford Civic Society is similar. The Coalition for Healthy Streets & Active Travel is not a charity and does not have individual membership, but lists the organisations that are part of it. The Oxford Business Action Group is not registered as a charity or a company and does not list its members: Jeremy Mogford’s restaurant chain, Branca in Jericho, and Hoyles on the High are the three most commonly quoted supporters. We have been unable to find any formally constituted membership organisations on the anti- side and would be interested to hear of any. We do attempt to reflect all this in our coverage, but as always, decide for yourself.

(For the avoidance of doubt, the Clarion is not a formally constituted charity or company either. We have set out our stall and will leave you to judge whether we have too much time on our hands!)

Oxford Bus Company MD Luke Marion told BBC Radio Oxford (1hr20 in) that “It’s really pleasing to see the council’s listened”, and suggested a carrot-and-stick approach: “You need schemes that have more of a pushing factor to them to encourage that behaviour change.”

Social media

Online, one aspect of the proposals causing confusion was whether the 100 free day permits for Oxford residents would remain. City LibDem leader Chris Smowton confirmed that they would, posting to the Littlemore Live Facebook group:

“I've checked and confirmed that the 100 free day passes for local people ARE still happening under the amended scheme. That means for an Oxford resident the first hundred DAYS (not journeys) you go through a filter each year are FREE, £5/day thereafter. For an Oxfordshire resident, the first 25 days are free each year. I've asked the County to update their website to make this clearer since it looks like a lot of people think it'll be £5/day from day one even if you're a local resident.”

Social media comment has broadly reflected the lack of consensus in Oxford on how to tackle traffic. Generally we saw more approving comments on Bluesky and Reddit, fewer on Nextdoor and Facebook, with Twitter somewhere in the middle. A small selection:

“So encouraging yet again to shop at Didcot where one can park for three hours free.” [Nextdoor]
“Labour coming out hard against the gentlest congestion charge ever conceived” [Bluesky]
“Basically everywhere congestion pricing has been implemented it has worked brilliantly and become popular very shortly after implementation, it should be a basic part of the urban planning toolkit in the 21st century.” [Reddit]
“At last, there seem to be tentative moves to introduce the (unpopular) measures that might be helpful” [Bluesky]
“Hardly surprising the roads now cannot cope with the huge increase in housing/population in Oxfordshire. You can't have it both ways. 1000s of new housing = 1000s more people & cars” [Facebook]
“Great if there were suitable public transport options, but there aren’t for me. Why is Oxford just sticks and no carrots” [Reddit]
“Oxford residents must pay because of the diabolical project management of those companies working on the railway bridge. It beggars belief.” [Nextdoor]
“How about a £5 a day rebate for every Oxford resident for the insufferable pain caused by these ridiculous over running roadworks.” [Facebook]
“The park and ride in Oxford is excellent. Use the cash raised by congestion charge to improve park and ride facilities.” [Twitter]
“Bus users shouldn't have to pay the price for congestion caused by cars. We cannot have better busses without reducing traffic.” [Bluesky]
“Cycling routes are not actually safe - I’m not going to ask my 10 year old and 6 year old to cycle into city centre for their swimming class” [Reddit]
“I just don’t believe that it’s ever been possible to drive in Oxford without congestion. And I am baffled by the opposition to every single plan to address it.” [Reddit]

We’re not sure whether the Telegraph and the Daily Mail count as newspapers or social media these days. Both ran stories on the congestion charge, both written by Oxford Mail alumni (Albert Tait and Olivia Christie respectively), and both quoting former cafe owner Clinton Pugh, who said “You have got no one in the council who has any business experience.” The Telegraph piece was illustrated by a photo of Mr Pugh by the Low Traffic Neighbourhood he campaigned for on Dawson Street.

He said, she said…

Monday’s news was released to the press in advance with a strict “no contact” embargo – a request not to leak the news by phoning up people for comment. This is fairly standard practice.

As a result, our initial report simply set out what the proposals were, rather than how they landed. With big news like this, the reaction is part of the story, hence why we’re revisiting it two days later to summarise opinions.

But at the Clarion, we far prefer writing about concrete proposals than an endless stream of “the people who don’t like traffic restrictions exclusively told us they don’t like these traffic restrictions”. The luxury of opposition is that you can just oppose: you’re not required to come up with answers.

That may not last for long. Local government reorganisation means three bodies are vying to be in charge of Oxford’s traffic: Oxfordshire County Council (as a whole-county unitary), Oxford City Council (as a ‘Greater Oxford’ unitary), and the districts’ ‘Two Councils’ plan. In judging the proposals, Government will be looking for realistic governance: structures that can actually work, rather than just glossy brochures. There is no better example of this than the councils’ prospective ability to tackle Oxford’s intractable traffic problem.

Meanwhile, as the county swung sharply LibDem in May’s elections, the results within the city boundary were inconclusive. The anti-LTN Independent Oxford Alliance underperformed, Labour limited their losses and the Greens made gains. City residents may be divided over traffic measures, but the results suggest neither the IOA nor Labour have yet put forward a plan that wins people over.