Elected with vague promises about the environment and making cycling safer, as soon as the Marxist Councillors in Oxford got into office they began implementing their real agenda: A Communist-style war on private car ownership and the vilification of anyone who owns one.
Installed in the Middle of the Night
In 2020, in the dead of night, Oxford Council installed its first ‘LTN’ by blocking off streets with bollards and barriers on one of the main arteries into the City Centre. The council knew their plans had no public support and would face fierce opposition from local residents so installed the barriers during the first lockdown, under cover of night. Residents in and around Walton street, just north of the city centre, woke up to find the road they lived on entirely blocked at one end: no warning, and no explanation.
Councillor's LIED about the real reason for the Roadblock.
The council was less-than-honest about the reasons why they had blocked off the road at all. First councillors claimed it was 'essential roadworks’; then changed their story to claim it was part of 'Lockdown', before finally admitted that it was a 'trial period' LTN scheme, and told residents there was no need to get upset.
'Putting patients lives at risk.'
Members of both the fire and ambulance services said that the barriers would put patient's lives at risk, but this, along with the voices of local businesses who saw their trade drop off a cliff, were totally ignored.
The barrier stayed for some 18 months, long after any roadworks or lockdown had ended, and then mysteriously vanished, with residents thinking that the council had seen sense, and that they had won a victory for common sense, but they were wrong. Common sense is no match for Marxist Ideology and this, in the council's eyes, didn't solve anything, the car, the ultimate symbol of freedom, was still on the streets, it would still have to go.
28 roads blocked in just one (working class) neighbourhood.
in Autumn of 2021 Oxford County Council blocked off a further 28 roads, this time in Cowley, just south of the City Centre. The area targeted for 'improvement' a busy suburb of Oxford, populated overwhelmingly by working class people, many of whom work in the MINI factory less than a mile away. The streets around Cowley, already a nightmare due to previous councils, couldn't now be used, either because motorists were blocked from entering or exiting them, or because the resulting traffic merely gridlocked what was left.
The entire area imploded. Thousands of residents had their freedoms curtailed, local businesses saw their turnover crash, and those who drove for a living claimed it was making their lives impossible. Even the local bus company reported that the LTNs were making it virtually impossible to run their services anywhere near the scheme. Emergency Services stated, again, that even with the new rubber barriers that allowed them access, the scheme was STILL putting people's lives at risk.
None of this deterred the Councillors however, with one resident asking
"just what would it take to have the LTNs scrapped?"
Councillors deny chaos they created is anything to do with them.
Councillors then denied that the resulting gridlock was anything to do with them, one Tweeting: Correlation [doesn't equal] causation, roads all over Oxford are gridlocked every day.
going on to say:
Local Residents smash down the bollards (repeatedly)
But, within hours of the council putting up the barriers residents tore them down again. Every time they were replaced, local residents, often with angle grinders, removed them, sending a clear message to the Councillors who had installed the LTN despite local residents overwhelmingly rejecting them. The residents were angry, they had already expressed their feelings on the scheme during the so-called 'consultation' and despite them overwhelmingly rejecting the scheme, Councillors went ahead with it anyway.
Councillor shows utter contempt for residents
When news of residents actions reached the Councillors they responded with utter contempt for those that had elected them. Oxfordshire County Councillor Damian Hayward tweeted:
"So half of the Bollards in East Oxford have been ripped out, and people have taken power tools to the planters to try and remove them."
"I am absolutely fed up with a culture that demands we drive everywhere and encourages vandalism to maintain this."
Haywood, an NHS manager and militant cyclist, appeared adamant that the feelings of local residents were irrelevant to the councils plans. Completely ignoring the 90% of businesses in the area who said no to the LTNs, or the petition that received thousands of signatures in just 24 hours of going live.
Haywood appeared peevish, making it clear that he was perfectly willing for any number of other people’s lives to suffer, just as long as his ideological system was brought into being.
LTNs only implemented in working-class neighbourhoods.
The residents of Cowley have pointed out that the LTN schemes have only been imposed on the working class neighbourhoods of Oxford and that the wealthy suburbs, where the councillors all just happen to live, are completely unaffected. All 12 of the councillors who sanctioned the scheme live in leafy suburbs where they can come and go as they please, using whatever mode of transport they please. Banning cars is very much for 'the little people', the Proles, as Orwell called them.
The answer is “Ban the car, now what’s the question?”
The council lied about the first roadblock and continue to change their ‘reasons’ for implementing them. In 2021 Oxford Council published a document filled with platitudes and vague commitments to reducing climate change. However, nothing that Oxford Councillors do will affect climate change one iota, and the public know this, so a new ‘crisis’ had to be created: When climate change wasn't having the desired effect, councillors changed tac, claiming that pollution was the actual reason for their attack on motorists.
Councillors subsequently stated that air quality in the area had improved but as there is no measuring equipment anywhere in the area (we've checked) and they have not released any data that proved their claim, so this sounds like another lie.
Council move goalposts to prevent motorists being able to mount a defence.
However, since implementation of the LTNs has happened yet another 'justification' has been put forward; now the car must be banned because of a danger to pedestrians and cyclists. This moving of goalposts is, of course, completely intentional, done by the Marxist Oxford Council to make it impossible for residents they are now readily attacking, to defend their right to car ownership, and freedom to move around the city unhindered. How can they defend their right when the council has vilified them but won't settle on what crime they have supposedly committed?
Lobbyists are claimed to be just 'local residents'
The war on working class residents that the Marxist controlled Oxford County Council has been almost entirely orchestrated by Lobbyists and Activists whose hatred for the motorist is obvious. One such group Cyclox who publish falsehoods, biased data and anecdotes as if they are evidence have been behind much of the scheme.
A quick look at their website leaves you under no illusions to their real agenda. enter the site and you're never far away from core neo-Marxist ideologies of 'gender equality' and 'Diversity'. The founder of the lobby group is Alison Hill, a retired Public Health Doctor now in her 70s who regularly appears on local television to rave about how she 'risks being killed every time she leaves her house'. These should be discounted as the mad ravings of a selfish and deluded old socialist, however, her twisted view of the world heavily influenced road policy in Oxford. In fact the Council have stated that they are working 'in conjunction' with Cyclox to plan the new road structures. Hill lives in the local area giving the council the perfect excuse to claim that 'local residents have called for the LTNs' .
One demented old biddy on a bicycle is not representative of the community.
But how was one person's toxic views on her fellow residents allowed to have so much influence over the Council? The Council have refused to comment. But what is clear is that a proper impact assessment was never done. The council's utter obsession with neo-Marxist ideology has meant that they are implementing the scheme without regard to local residents or businesses. They are imposing their extremist ideologies on the poorest community in the city, a community unable to fight-back in the courts or on the hustings. A community of mostly working class people who want from the council to empty the bins, fill the potholes and fix the street lights, just like everyone else.