MP engagement update: our emails to Layla Moran MP remain unanswered

While we await confirmation of our oral renewal hearing date, we continue to pursue every appropriate route to ensure the congestion charge is scrutinised properly. This update concerns MP engagement. 

On 28 November 2025, we sent an email to Layla Moran MP and her assistant, following up on our conversation we had with Ms Moran in the Covered Market on 24 November. We had been there leading a protest alongside local traders who were angry about the impact that the congestion charge, introduced on 29 October, was already having on their businesses. 

The Oxford Mail, 24 November

Ms Moran, who was there to be interviewed about the forthcoming budget, made a point of talking to some of the traders in attendance, and listening to what they had to say. She seemed interested and keen to engage, coming over specifically to talk to us about the protest and what had prompted it.

We were pleased when she indicated that she would be open to meeting with us and with groups who were being affected negatively by the congestion charge scheme. She said that she wanted to understand its real-world impacts on local residents and businesses. She even invited us to suggest what kinds of people she should meet, and asked us to send an email with this information, marked for the attention of her assistant. 

We sent that email on 28 November, suggesting that, as a starting point, she consider holding meetings with: 

• businesses

• mobile traders

• teachers (and school heads)

• NHS staff (and NHS managers)

• care workers 

• those in receipt of care at home

• parents

• older people

• SEND individuals and their families

We offered to help her set up these meetings, and to promote them and reach out to potential attendees.

Ms Moran talking with Tap Social in a pre-planned interview before she spoke with us

We re-iterated in our email that Open Roads for Oxford had been set up to represent those whose voices are not being heard on the issue, and confirmed that there are many groups who are facing difficulties as a result of the congestion charge scheme; and we also expressed our concern that the majority Lib Dem County Council were still pressing ahead regardless of the concerns raised. 

We received no reply from Ms Moran or her assistant, but we understood that Christmas may have got in the way, and our communication could have been overlooked. 

With that in mind, we followed up by email on 5 January, asking Ms Moran or her assistant to share Ms Moran’s availability for meetings ‘over the next few weeks’. We even offered to travel to Westminster or hold on-line meetings, if face-to-face meetings locally were a challenge. 

We are disappointed to report that we have still heard nothing back. 

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We believe that meaningful dialogue between elected representatives and those directly affected by such a profoundly impactful scheme is essential and we remain keen to work constructively with Ms Moran - we want to make sure that the lived experiences of residents, workers and businesses affected by the congestion charge are properly understood and considered by those in a position to affect change. We remain willing to meet at any time and to assist in arranging discussions with affected groups. 

We have now written to all other Oxfordshire MPs with the same invitation, and we sincerely hope they will engage. We will share any responses as soon as we have them.