Response from the High Court

We want to share an important and timely update on our legal challenge against Oxfordshire County Council. Earlier today, we received the High Court’s decision on the paper permission stage of our Judicial Review.

What has happened

The judge has refused permission for the case to proceed at the paper permission stage. This is a stage where an initial decision is made without any kind of hearing, based on an initial reading of the papers alone. This is not a final determination of the case.

What this decision does - and does not - mean

It is important to be clear about what the court has not done at this stage. The court has:

• not ruled that the congestion charge scheme is lawful

• not tested the evidence in open court

• not heard argument from our barrister

• not dismissed the case

A paper refusal simply means that the judge was not persuaded, on written material alone, that the case should proceed without further argument.

What happens next

Court rules explicitly provide for this situation. We now have the right to request an oral permission hearing, at which the decision is reconsidered by a judge in person.
This is not an appeal, but a further opportunity - expressly included in the rules - to demonstrate that the case is arguable through oral argument.

At that hearing:

• our barrister can present the case directly

• the judge can ask questions and probe the issues

• key points can be clarified and tested

• the real-world impacts can be properly examined

This is a normal and anticipated step in many judicial review cases - particularly those involving complex evidence, as this one does. Many judicial review cases that do not succeed on paper do succeed after oral reconsideration.

The court has set out clear directions for next steps. That would not happen if the case were over and the claim had been thrown out.

Funding and next steps

Preparing for an oral permission hearing requires further legal work, including refining arguments, preparing hearing bundles, and further instruction of counsel.

The court has confirmed that while our costs exposure remains capped, providing important protection, proceeding to oral permission involves defined additional costs - primarily solicitor time to renew the application and further work by counsel to prepare for and attend the hearing - and we need funds in place to take this next step.

We cannot stress enough that funding is crucial. If this congestion charge is left in place, traffic filters will follow. Residents and visitors will not be able to drive, without a £70 fine, along the length of any of the following crucial routes into and across the city: Hythe Bridge Street; St Cross Road; St Clement’s Street; Thames Street; Marston Ferry Road; and Hollow Way.

This is now a pivotal moment and we have to act quickly. Please donate if you can. Please encourage others to do the same.

Thank you

We are deeply grateful to everyone who has supported this challenge so far. Your generosity has already taken this case to the High Court and ensured that serious legal questions are being asked.

We will continue to keep you informed openly and promptly, as we have at every stage.

Thank you for standing with us.

Judicial Review Update: Counsel Appointed and Permission Bundle Filed

We are pleased to share an important update on our legal challenge, marking a significant step forward in holding the Council to account.

Legal counsel now appointed

We have now formally engaged Charles Streeten of Francis Taylor Building as our barrister: Charles acted for the West Dulwich Action Group and won their case against Lambeth Council, in relation to a transport scheme imposed following a flawed consultation process.

The case is particularly significant because it demonstrates that the courts will intervene where a council presses ahead with a major transport intervention without meeting the required standards of lawful consultation, evidence, and decision-making. The challenge succeeded because the authority failed to comply with its public law duties - including fairness, proper consideration of consultation responses, and lawful use of statutory powers. We are heartened by this result!

Charles’ involvement in that case means he brings direct, recent experience of exactly the kinds of issues raised by our own challenge: consultation that was not genuinely formative; reliance on outdated, deficient or recycled evidence; inadequate assessment of impacts; and decision-making that appears to have been settled in advance. His appointment gives us highly relevant specialist expertise at this critical stage.

Case submitted for review

Working closely with Charles and our solicitors at Bates Wells, we submitted our permission bundle to the High Court for a judicial review claim just before Christmas. We also requested an expedited hearing, given the ongoing and widening impacts of the scheme. OCC had a right to respond to our submission and did so, trying to argue that we have no case, but we returned a firm rebuttal. We await the judge’s decision to allow us to progress the case and we are hopeful of a positive response and a hearing in the spring. 

Further funding is now critical

We know that this scheme is already having real and damaging effects - as we and so many others anticipated. Businesses across Oxford are reporting downturns in trade, in some cases severe and potentially catastrophic. Residents are experiencing increased cost, stress, and reduced access. We continue to receive accounts from people whose daily lives, work, caring responsibilities and community involvement have been materially affected.

Unfortunately, legal challenges of this nature are expensive, and we now urgently need to raise further funds to continue our fight. We have already raised nearly £60,000 through the extraordinary generosity of so many supporters, from private donations, transfers from aligned funds, and our GoFundMe campaign. That support has brought us this far, enabling us to instruct experienced solicitors and counsel, prepare detailed evidence, and reach the permission stage. However, we are not yet at the end of the road and we cannot succeed without significant further funding.

How you can support the case

If you are able to donate even a small amount - it really makes a difference. Please also consider sharing details of our legal challenge with friends, family, colleagues, and networks who care about fairness, evidence-based policymaking, and the future of Oxford. Please encourage them to donate too! 

If you aren’t in a position to donate, there are other ways to help too. If you can volunteer time, assist with outreach, or help us reach new audiences, we would very much like to hear from you. Please contact us at info@openroadsforoxford.org with details of how you think you might best be able to contribute - or simply let us know that you’re willing to help, and we’ll be in touch.

Thank you for your support.

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.