By Oxford city councillor Paul Harris

LAST August, I wrote in the Oxford Times pointing out the serious flaws in the City Council’s then plans for a Zero Emission Zone (ZEZ) in the centre of Oxford.

The ZEZ would have had no significant effect in reducing emissions, and would have caused some city centre businesses to close down or move out of the centre.

It was a bad case of ‘virtue signalling’, trying to look good by creating the world’s first ZEZ, but actually achieving nothing.

In November, my Liberal Democrat colleague, Councillor Tom Landell-Mills, and I proposed a motion at the council calling for that ZEZ proposal to be replaced instead with an Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ), with stricter limits on emissions for buses, extending also to coaches and to heavy goods vehicles (HGVs), and applying to a much larger area of the city.

The opposing view: New plans better 'because we listened'

We were sure that this could be done quickly, so as to achieve a real and early impact on pollution. Our motion was supported by all Lib Dems but was unanimously voted down by the ruling Labour group.

This month a new proposal has been put forward, jointly by the city and county councils, which goes a considerable way to adopting the proposals Tom Landell-Mills and I put forward in November.

The existing Low Emission Zone for buses, which requires them to meet the outdated 2009 Euro 5 emission standard, would be replaced by a requirement to meet the stricter 2016 Euro 6 standard, and this Low Emission Zone would apply to the whole of the city centre.

The original ZEZ plan would be limited to a ban on parking emitting vehicles in the six streets of the original ZEZ proposal, and would no longer apply to the loading area for the Covered Market.

I welcome this partial adoption of our Lib Dem proposals, and I also welcome plans announced this month to assist the Oxford taxi fleet to convert to electric, but there is much more to be done.

There is still no commitment in the new proposals to tackle pollution from HGVs, a major source of pollution for which there is at present no commercially available electric alternative.

London already has a low emission zone for HGVs. There is no reason why Oxford should not also have one.

The ban on parking non-electric delivery vehicles in Ship Street, St Michael’s Street and New Inn Hall Street will still badly affect a number of small businesses in a very unfair way, and is not justified.

Effort should be devoted instead to the important task of extending the Euro 6 emission requirement to tourist coaches, which, like HGVs, are a large source of diesel pollution.

Oxford City Council itself still uses only a tiny proportion of electric vehicles in its own fleet, and needs to set an example by going electric as much as possible.

The ULEZ is proposed to stop at Magdalen Bridge but needs to be extended to include heavily polluted St Clements and The Plain.

Finally, improvements are needed to the present system for monitoring vehicle emissions. This is at present probably adequate for nitrogen dioxide. It is quite inadequate for diesel particulates, for which there are only two monitoring stations in the whole of the city.

Only when these additional measures are put in place will the City Council have done all it can to raise Oxford’s air quality to an acceptable level.

ZEZ factfile: The new proposals

- Only zero emission capable vehicles will be allowed to park or load in a ‘red’ city centre zone – comprising Cornmarket Street, Queen Street, New Inn Hall Street, St Michael’s Street, Ship Street, and part of Market Street – between 10am and 6pm from next year. An exact date for implementation has not been set

- All taxis licensed in the city will have to be zero emitting by 2025

- All Oxford buses will need to be low-emitting Euro 6 models by the end of next year

- All polluting vehicles to be excluded from a zone in place by 2037 at the latest