In a terraced neighbourhood of east Oxford, a nationally divisive issue has triggered acts of arson, violence, theft and vandalism.
Is it Brexit? No. Channel crossings? No. Public sector strikes? No. It’s bollards.
The bollards in question form part of the St Mary’s low-traffic neighbourhood (LTN), a scheme replicated across England, in which motor vehicles are prevented from taking shortcuts by posts, planters and other measures in an attempt to create quieter and safer streets for the residents.
One of the road blocks in the St Mary’s LTN on Howard Street has been named “Britain’s most hated bollard” by tabloids after CCTV captured it being repeatedly stolen, deliberately knocked down and even set on fire.
LTNs have caused bitter arguments up and down the country, with critics claiming they push car use to busier main roads, slow down emergency response times and are damaging for nearby businesses.
But in east Oxford, where the furore around LTNs has led national press and even the crew of BBC Panorama to descend on the otherwise uneventful neighbourhood, those in support of the measures are mounting a fightback against the relentless attempts to remove, destroy and undermine the bollards and planters.
Walking and cycling with his two children on the afternoon school run along Howard Street, Al Kinley-Jones, 36, tells the Guardian: “Since the measures were introduced to the area we live, it is so much quieter – and it is all the way to school. It feels so much safer.”
And Kinley-Jones is right. The street – which previously provided an uninterrupted connection between the two busiest roads in east Oxford, Cowley Road and Iffley Road – is almost eerily quiet, with young children happily and confidently cycling along the road as relaxed parents look on.
“To begin with, the debate over the LTNs was relatively civil,” Kinley-Jones says. “But then new measures were introduced and it seemed to blow up. People started vandalising them.”
The conflict between those in support and those against the measures even led to alleged physical violence, he says. After one of the occasions when the Howard Street bollard was stolen, a group formed a “human blockade” in its place, and a 79-year-old man was reportedly punched in the face.
Tracking tags were deployed in the bollards so they could be retrieved and returned when stolen, with the council recently upgrading the bollard to a timber model, which is heavier and harder to remove.
Zuhura Plummer is campaign director at Oxfordshire Liveable Streets, an organisation that pushes for measures including LTNs, to improve the environment around them.
“I think it’s the UK equivalent of gun rights – the right to drive and drive wherever you want,” she said, reflecting on the furore and unprecedented attention placed on bollards.
“There’s deliberate stoking on the internet, but we want to show the positives.”
Plummer says the key argument levelled by critics – that the LTNs displace traffic to surrounding streets – is not borne out by evidence: overall the number of car journeys fall and people are taking up cycling or walking. Outside Larkrise primary school, the proportion travelling by car had fallen from 35% to 14%.
Plummer argues that the advent of Google Maps opened up a significant number of streets as potential rat-runs, which were previously unknown and not used. LTNs reset this, she says.
Ines Wilhelm, a nearby resident, backs them. “Since the LTNs were installed, I have made so many new connections and made new friends in my neighbourhood,” she said.
“Sometimes when I’m out and about in Cowley and east Oxford, I have to stop for chats four or five times just on the way to the shops and back because I bump into one of my neighbours or friends from the area.
“Once the traffic is reduced, the road danger and noise is gone, people are free to make connections. For me, this is a massive positive effect of the LTNs, and one that I had not anticipated beforehand to that extent.”
The anger in St Mary’s has spread to neighbouring LTNs, with 20 bollards destroyed in less than three weeks.
James Schumann, who lives within the Divinity Road LTN in east Oxford, on the other side of Cowley Road to St Mary’s, said: “They used to be busy roads around me, which were totally unsuitable for that number, about 6,000 cars per day; friends were nervous to cycle.
“But now I see children playing football in the street, cycling and walking to school, deliveries by cargo bike, people talking on street corners without the noise and fumes of traffic – it’s become a community.”
Later in the afternoon, a white Peugeot Boxer van with three men sitting upfront came to a halt in front of the Howard Street bollard. The air was thick with tension. Would they alight the vehicle? Torch the bollard? Punch one of the parents?
But then, perhaps anti-climatically, the van slowly reversed 70 metres before turning down Cricket Road to continue its journey via an alternative route, and quiet fell on Howard Street once again.
