Council rejects motion to end Congestion Charge, despite mounting evidence and public outcry

On November 4th at full council, Oxfordshire County Council once again chose to ignore the people it represents and their lived reality.

A motion tabled by Cllr Liam Walker called for the immediate termination of the Oxford Congestion Charge scheme, citing the strong opposition from residents, businesses, and key workers, and the growing concerns about its impact on cost of living, local trade, and access to essential services.

The motion also sought to guarantee that no similar charging schemes would be reintroduced without full public consultation and demonstrable support.

When the vote was called, it was conducted as a named vote. We will provide the named list in full here as soon as it becomes available. The outcome was 22 councillors in favour, 36 against, and 2 abstentions.

This result ensures that a deeply unpopular and economically damaging scheme continues — despite overwhelming public opposition, clear economic harm, and a mounting body of evidence against it.

All three directors of Open Roads for Oxford Ltd (ORFO) addressed the full council before the vote.

Anne Gwinnett called for integrity and representation

Anne reminded councillors that this was the first time the full council had ever debated the Congestion Charge - a fact she described as “astonishing” - and urged members to vote with conscience, not party instruction, saying:

“The public expect you to represent them. Not your party. Not the Cabinet. Them - the people who elected you.”

Her speech challenged councillors to demonstrate authenticity and integrity, warning that the public were watching - and that voters would not forget those who placed party loyalty above the people they serve.

Read her full speech here.

Paul Major spoke about the economic reality on the ground

Paul spoke as the owner of specialist pen shop Pens Plus: he revealed that his business was already down over 50% in the first five days of the charge being implemented.

“Who in their right mind introduces such a scheme so close to Christmas? This decision was irresponsible, reckless, and dangerous.”

He detailed the severe and immediate economic impact on local retailers, forecasting closures, job losses, and irreversible damage to Oxford’s independent economy — while exposing the Council’s reliance on flawed modelling and empty consultation data.

Read Paul’s speech in full here.

Emily Scaysbrook set out the data that OCC’s own officers have tried to ignore

Emily focused on the Council’s own evidence — showing that both congestion and air quality targets have already been met without the charge. She reminded the council that their modelling set a goal of cutting car-person trips from 288,000 to 261,500 per day, yet by June 2025 the figure had already fallen to around 231,000 — well below target.

“By the Council’s own figures, car-person trips have already fallen fifteen per cent below the target the filters were meant to achieve — by doing nothing.”

She also pointed out that, according to Oxford City Council’s Air Quality Report, every monitoring site in Oxford now meets the national pollution limit, with only four of 118 sites exceeding the city’s stricter internal target.

Emily concluded by warning that small businesses - including her own, games shop Hoyle’s - are already seeing devastating losses, and reaffirming ORFO’s intent to hold the Council legally accountable.

Read Emily’s speech in full here.

Democracy ignored

Despite the data, the testimony, and the public outcry, the Council voted to continue with the scheme. Thirty-six councillors chose to defend a policy that lacks both public support and evidential justification.

ORFO considers this a grave failure of local democracy — a refusal to engage honestly with the facts, and a further erosion of public trust in the institutions that claim to act on behalf of Oxfordshire residents.

What happens next

This vote will not be the end of the matter and ORFO’s legal challenge continues at pace.

Our position remains simple: transport policy should be lawful, transparent, rooted in evidence and minimally impactful on all residents for the sake of achieving its aims. It should not be based in flawed, arrogant ideology.

We will continue to hold Oxfordshire County Council to account until that standard is met.

OCC responds to legal challenge – and fails to address core concerns

On 21 October 2025, Oxfordshire County Council (OCC) issued its formal response to the pre-action protocol letter we sent them on 7 October 2025.

While the Council’s 17-page letter formally replies to the issues raised, it fails to meaningfully address the core legal and evidential concerns at the heart of our challenge. OCC insists that its decision to approve six temporary congestion charging points was lawful, proportionate, and based on “a fair and effective consultation” - claims which are simply not supported by the facts.

Among other things:

• OCC continues to rely on outdated evidence drawn from the 2022 traffic filter proposals, rather than commissioning new assessments for the 2025 charging scheme;

• It dismisses widespread public opposition, claiming that 7,000 consultation responses “speak for themselves” while refusing to acknowledge that the majority were negative;

• It sidesteps the issue of predetermination, asserting that councillors “kept open minds” despite clear indications that the decision to proceed had already been made before the consultation began;

• Its Equalities Impact Assessment is admitted to have been recycled from 2022, with minimal update — a position that effectively confirms one of ORFO’s grounds of challenge; and

• Rather than engaging with the evidence of procedural unfairness, OCC warns of “serious costs consequences” for those who seek to hold it to account.

The response provides no new data, no fresh analysis, and no serious engagement with the documented failures of process or the contradictions in its own evidence base.

OCC’s position, in short, demonstrates the very culture of closed decision-making, inadequate scrutiny, and disregard for public input that this challenge seeks to expose.

ORFO remains confident in its grounds for judicial review and is now preparing to issue proceedings.

You can read Oxfordshire County Council’s full response here.

Open Roads for Oxford issues formal legal challenge to Oxfordshire County Council

On 7 October 2025, represented by Bates Wells, we issued a Pre-Action Protocol letter to Oxfordshire County Council.

This marks the formal first step in seeking Judicial Review of the Council’s decision on 10 September 2025 to implement six temporary congestion charging points across Oxford.

The letter sets out detailed grounds for challenge, including:

• Failure to conduct a fair and lawful consultation, contrary to the legal standards known as the Gunning Principles;

• Predetermination and bias, with the Council appearing to have made its decision before the consultation concluded;

• Use of outdated evidence, drawn from earlier “traffic filter” proposals rather than from fresh analysis of the new charging scheme; and

• Failure to comply with the Public Sector Equality Duty, by not properly assessing how the policy affects groups with protected characteristics.

ORFO believes that the Council’s approach was procedurally flawed and substantively unjustified, and that Oxford deserves policies based on evidence, transparency, and genuine public engagement - not predetermined decisions.

Please see here in full.

OCC Congestion Charge consultation - our response

Collaborating with other local interest groups including Reconnecting Oxford to create as robust a consultation response as possible, ORFO submitted a 45-page response to OCC’s consultation on the Congestion Charge scheme, setting out a large number of serious, evidenced concerns about:

• the ability of the scheme to deliver what is claimed;

• the economic impact;

• the disproportionate impact on particular groups, including vulnerable people;

• the lack of any engagement with potential alternative solutions;

• the efficacy of the modelling used to predict and assess the outcomes;

• and the consultation process. This and OCC’s response have provided useful evidence.

Please see here.