Anti-social restriction

It seems clear that many residents to the north of Magdalen Road want the scheme, while the reverse is true of those south of Magdalen Road. The knowledge that the CPZ is being foisted on us indiscriminately is having an increasingly divisive effect on the local community.

The vast majority of residents who opposed the original scheme are still opposing it for a variety of reasons.

Personally allowing one man, councillor Rodney Rose, who lives many miles away from the area and who has no discernible links with Magdalen Road, to impose a controversial scheme is surely contrary to the democratic process.

Secondly, the CPZ will have an adverse effect on local businesses, which add colour and provide a unique multicultural service to the community. Thirdly, destruction of many of the front gardens in the area will ruin the character of this part of Oxford.

Gardens and trees are a precious asset and to replace them with concrete car parking spaces is both aesthetically and environmentally short-sighted, particularly given Oxford’s propensity for flooding.

Already, hedges are being uprooted, walls are demolished and pavements dropped, to reveal vistas of cars and and wastebins. People will vote with their feet and move away, further diminishing the special qualities which make East Oxford the unique,multicultural place it is.

Furthermore, the limitation to the number of visitors people are able to have in a year is a yet another anti-social restriction.

It is still not too late to reconsider foisting this totally undemocratic scheme on to the community that makes up this unique part of Oxford.

Sylvia Barker, Oxford