Top Gear presenter Quentin Willson returned to Oxford to re-shoot a controversial episode condemning the city's new transport strategy, writes Roseena Parveen.

Producers of the BBC's flagship motoring show were ordered back to the city by corporation bosses after it was admitted that the original programme, aired in November, was biased.

The Top Gear team was busy yesterday re-making a show, which will be screened on Thursday.

The crew filmed on location around the city centre and conducted interviews.

Arriving yesterday for an interview with David Young, the county council's environmental services director, Mr Willson refused to discuss the ruling by the BBC's own watchdog, the Programme Complaints Unit, which labelled the programme as unfair. The Oxford Bus Company, Oxfordshire Chamber of Commerce and other organisations had accused Top Gear's team of deliberately filming empty buses and not using footage of people who praised the scheme.

The show said Oxford was a "city completely off its head", with Mr Willson describing the £200m scheme, aimed at cutting congestion and pollution, as a "sinister plot that would have Inspector Morse baffled".

After reluctantly posing for a picture, Mr Willson appeared eager to get the re-make over and done with.

A BBC spokesman said: "Top Gear has a legitimate role in representing the motorist's point of view in order to set out the broader picture and take account of the changing nature of the situation in Oxford."

Mr Young, in charge of the OTS, told the Oxford Mail he had offered to speak to the show the first time round, but they declined the offer. He said: "I think the complaints came partly because they deliberately took film of buses on dead runs. And even though we told them beforehand, they quoted certain things as fact which weren't fact.

"We did not actually complain about the programme. Others did. I guess that's part of the reason they've come back.

"Firstly, trade is much better than before - the number of people in the central area is up. The second, is that there really is no alternative to what we are doing at the moment." The Oxford Transport Strategy was introduced last June. It pedestrianised Cornmarket Street, re-routed buses and closed the High Street to cars during the day.

Some traders, particularly those in the Covered Market, said they were losing trade and now measures including less stringent parking restrictions are being considered.

Story date: Saturday 12 February

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.