The transport secretary has doubled down on his claim that local councils want to “decide how often you go to the shops”.
At the Conservative Party Conference, Mark Harper said he was “calling time on the misuse of so-called 15-minute cities”.
In his speech, he said: “What is sinister, and what we shouldn’t tolerate, is the idea that local councils can decide how often you go to the shops, and that they can ration who uses the roads and when, and that they police it all with CCTV.”
The Independent and other media asked the Department for Transport (DfT) for clarification. Now, speaking on Times Radio, Mark Harper has revealed he was referring specifically to Oxford City Council.
The presenter, Stig Abell, asked: “Which council is telling you how often you can go to the shops?”
Mr Harper said: “Yes, I can give you a specific example. If you go onto Oxfordshire County Council’s website you will see they have got proposals to have permits issued to residents allowing them only to go down certain roads a certain number of times a year, and using CCTV enforcement cameras to enforce it, and if you breach it you’ll get a fine.
“For councils to tell people that you can only use your cars to drive down certain roads a certain number of times a year, or you’ll be fined, I don’t think is appropriate and I don’t think most people support it.
“That’s what I was talking about in my speech, so that’s a very specific example of something that we don’t support and we’re going to look at how we can tighten guidance and rules so that councils aren’t able to do that.”
Oxfordshire County Council stresses that under its proposals “residents will still be able to drive to every part of the city at any time”.
The proposals have nothing to do with so-called “15-minute cities”. They are part of a project to “reduce traffic levels in Oxford by managing the use of certain roads in the city by private cars”.
Almost all private cars would be banned from crossing some stretches of road leading into the city centre, with CCTV cameras monitoring breaches.
The council is proposing some leniency, to allow residents of nearby locations to have 100 permits to enter the area each year and giving other Oxfordshire residents 25 permits.
Oxfordshire County Council, which is currently run by a Liberal Democrat Green alliance,…
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