CONTROVERSIAL plans to charge most motorists to drive through the city are the battleground in the forthcoming council elections as parties go head-to-head on the scheme.
The Oxford Zero Emission Zone (ZEZ) was launched in February as a pilot scheme, covering just a handful of city centre streets, with ‘polluting’ vehicles charged up to £10 a day to use those routes.
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Some vehicles are eligible for a discount from the daily charge, while some are exempt.
While most motorists have been unaffected by the pilot, a more radical expanded scheme – the first of its kind in the country – is expected to stretch across the wider city centre next year, meaning anyone unable to afford an electric vehicle may be forced to ditch their cars or pay up to £20 a day.
Political parties fighting for city council seats differ in their views on both the financial implications and broader delivery of the ZEZ, while independent candidates are seeking to pick up votes by opposing the scheme.
Sajjad Malik a leading voice among independent candidates said: “The ZEZ should not be expanded to include the whole of central Oxford in the next 12 months, which is the the current plan.
“The expanded ZEZ will make Oxford’s cost of living crisis even worse.
“It will hit most people who regularly drive around the city centre, with extra bills totalling hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds per year – the maximum daily charge from August 2025 will be £20 per day.
“The ZEZ should only expand when electric cars and vans are affordable to everyone.
“At present, electric vehicles are only affordable to the privileged few.
“This should be called a congestion zone rather than a Zero Emission Zone, because zero means no pollution or no vehicle.
“With this scheme, as long as you pay, you can drive any polluted vehicle.
“It’s a money-making excise in the name of environment.”
A spokesperson for the Oxfordshire Green Party also criticised the ZEZ scheme, describing it as ‘greenwash’.
“The ZEZ is not a zero emission zone but a congestion charge zone with discounts for low emission vehicles and other vehicle classes,” the spokesperson said.
“It is being introduced in a small number of streets with little consequences for air quality.
“The Greens believe that we need a scheme which genuinely addresses the city centre’s poor air quality rather than ‘greenwash’.
“If the ZEZ area was to be expanded then the deterrent effect of changing will likely have some beneficial impact on air quality.
“However, the fundamental problems with the scheme (the congestion charge and exempt vehicle classes) need to be addressed before it is expanded.
“This cannot be a cash-raising scheme but one whose success or failure is judged by the impact on air quality.
“Charging for access to the ZEZ is regressive, impacting on the poorest most whilst giving those with money the freedom to drive huge, polluting vehicles.
“All visiting vehicles should be treated equally regardless of the ability to pay.”
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Oxfordshire Conservatives said in a statement that the party doesn’t support the wider roll out of the ZEZ scheme.
The statement read: “It would diminish Oxford’s thriving cafe, restaurant and small business scene that makes our city so special.
“And what would it achieve when the Conservatives have already made an historic investment in greener transport, including £500 million in electric charging facilities and £3 billion in cleaner buses?
“Labour is refusing to conduct an economic business assessment on ZEZs. Why? Because they know we’ll all end up paying more for less, while our thriving local businesses are left to wither on the vine.
“To impose ZEZs at this time when we’re trying to recover from Covid and a cost of living crisis, reflects the fact we don’t have the leaders that Oxford deserves.”
The Conservative position represents something of a U-turn, after it was a Tory-led administration which identified a ZEZ in its Local Transport Plan in 2015.
The ZEZ scheme has been developed by Labour, with the party in firm support of its wider expansion.
A party statement read: “For five years, Oxford Labour has been developing the UK’s first Zero Emission Zone to clean up our polluted air and reduce our contribution to climate breakdown.
“It has been a long process because we have spent that time engaging local businesses and citizens and it deliberately starts small, covering a very central part of the city with very few permanent residents.
“Oxford Labour has proposed the wider roll out of the ZEZ across the city centre.
“We are learning from the ZEZ pilot ahead of the extension and will continue talking with and listening to businesses and citizens about the things we need to consider as part of the expansion.
“The ZEZ is about more than vehicle use in the city centre – it’s also about the licensing of taxis to encourage an all-electric fleet and the cleaning up of our city centre buses over a far larger geography than the current pilot.
“The aim of the current ZEZ, which covers a very small part of the city, is to encourage people accessing that area to use alternative modes of travel other than petrol or diesel engine vehicles.”
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Oxford City Liberal Democrats said in a statement: “The Liberal Democrat-led Oxfordshire Fair Deal Alliance is committed to bringing forward a radical transformation of Oxford’s traffic and public space management.
“The legacy of twenty years of Labour running the city and many decades of Tories in charge of our roads at county hall is plain for all to see: cars queuing for the cheap car park allowed by the city at Westgate, shops closing, buses jammed in traffic.
“The principles behind the ZEZ, of using camera-based enforcement to manage car use, are the right ones.
“We will actively look at developments in powers and technology around ANPR to explore a holistic approach to improving our city, as has been done elsewhere.
“We are running a small-scale pilot to test the technology and principles of ticketing – only when we are satisfied it is working will we consider allowing it to be expanded further and that may require adaption and modification.
“With these issues properly managed, the principles behind the pilot will play an important part in combating traffic and pollution. We need a genuine vision for our city to change it for the better.”
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