Covered market traders have demonstrated against the Oxford Transport Strategy claiming it will wreck their businesses.

Shop owners, who held the protest at the Covered Market, said that Oxfordshire County Council's plans to close the High Street to traffic would make it more difficult to deliver goods to the east of the city, where two-thirds of the population of Oxford live.

Alan Lester, owner of Delcoy's Leather Goods in the Covered Market, said: "In many cases, we have been delivering throughout the county for more than 200 years, but we seem to have been ignored by the county council. We were trying to emphasise that we are Oxford's original shopping centre and we rely on deliveries. "The closure of the High Street exit from the city centre will have a devastating effect on our businesses and we are hoping that common sense will prevail."

He added: "We have had discussions with both the Labour group and the Liberal group on the county council and we hope to have further talks to press our needs."

Traders are holding talks with county councillors to try to persuade them to adapt their plans so that deliveries will be possible.

No-one was available from Oxfordshire County Council to comment.

Peter Mann, principal planner with Oxford City Council, said: "As far as we are concerned, the public inquiry earlier this year dealt with the issue of the High Street restrictions.

"The inspector did not see any evidence that traders would be critically affected by the restrict- ions.

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