Every time the price of city centre car parking goes up, the tiniest dip in car park use sparks a furore amongst Oxford’s “business leaders”.

This perennial panic really gets my goat because it assumes that the car driver’s concerns are all that matters and it assumes that mainly drivers shop.

“Driven Away By Price Rise” appears a credible headline until you look at the facts.

Its subtext is that car parking prices should be lower – and that more car parking should be available. I have a postcard of High St taken in the 1950s: is this the quaint Oxford heyday that retailers hark back to?

Shopkeepers everywhere labour under the delusion that shop takings suffer when there are fewer cars.

In fact, research in Bristol by Sustrans in 2004 showed that retailers overestimated the importance of car-borne trade by almost 100 per cent: they estimated that 41 per cent of their customers arrived by car, whereas only 22 per cent had done so.

They estimated that six per cent of customers had cycled, whereas in fact 10 per cent had done so. You can read more about the Bristol retail travel study at www.sustrans.org.uk/liveableneighbourhoods.

Rather than harbouring spurious notions about fewer cars harming trade, retailers deserve a reality check.

Perhaps Rescue Oxford could persuade Sustrans to study Oxford shoppers’ habits. They might be surprised to discover that the vast majority of their trade comes from customers who arrive by bike, on foot or by bus.

And it’s a good job that we do. Imagine the chaos and misery if the city were as full of cars as retailers would like.

More cars in the city means more congestion. More congestion means that fewer people will want or be able to get into the city centre.

By encouraging a small percentage of car-driving customers, Oxford alienates the vast majority who use other means. It also creates a degraded city centre environment for everyone.

Oxford’s retailers might also be surprised to discover that the type of shopper who spends the most is in fact the cyclist, according to research by CTC.

Is that because you can carry a lot more in a pannier than in a shopping bag?

Or could it be that cyclists are wealthier, because they don’t waste so much money running a car? I don’t know, but the evidence is that pound for pound, a cycle-friendly city centre will be a much richer place – in more ways than one.

So, how do we do this? For a start, the councils need to do more to keep the city centre bike racks free of chattel. The city council says it clears racks four times a year: four times a month is what’s needed, once a month as an absolute minimum.

To encourage yet more cyclists, large bicycle “hubs” are needed inside the new Westgate and West End developments. A modest-sized hub would accommodate hundreds of bikes in a dry, secure environment, incorporating a bike repair and hire shop. If Cambridge’s new John Lewis development has one, so must ours.

Cycle parking assumes you’ve actually made it into the city centre in the first place. The county council wants to offer the travelling public a “choice”, yet oversized buses and aggressive traffic make many thousands in Oxford feel too intimidated to cycle.

Where’s their choice? Do Oxford a favour: give cycling a go.