OXFORD CITY CENTRE TO BE OFF-LIMITS TO PETROL & DIESEL CARS & VANS
Oxford City Council have suggested that they will ban petrol and diesel cars from many streets in the city centre.
More streets will be added in 2025, 2030 and then in 2035 a blanket ban will be in place.
Rolling out the country’s first ban on petrol and diesel cars…
The government has already announced its plans for all conventional petrol and diesel new cars to be banned from 2040, meaning new vehicles would have to be hybrid or fully-electric. The Oxford plans would beat that date by five years, but it’s the earlier stages from 2020 to 2030 that are likely to cause the most difficulty.
Banning approximately 99% of all current vehicles from key central streets of Oxford in less than three years’ time will cause significant headaches for bus and taxi companies, let alone delivery companies and personal drivers. It is going to require significant investment to make sure there are enough buses and taxis to access these streets once the ban is implemented, not to mention sufficient charging infrastructure to support these vehicles.
The councils have acknowledged that more funding will be required to implement these new measures.
Even council vehicles, like bin lorries and gritters, will need to be replaced with hybrid or electric models. Other schemes under consideration to support the zero-emission zone include reduced parking fees for electric vehicles, electric taxi-only ranks and electric delivery vehicle-only loading areas.
Head on over to the ZEZ page on the Oxford City Council website to take part in discussions about the proposal…
