Oxford Westgate had ‘golden quarter’ amid congestion charge

New centre director Clare Martin was pushed on what impact the congestion charge has had on the popular shopping centre.

Introduced in October, the £5 daily fee for motorists applies to Thames Street and would need to be paid to get into the Westgate’s parking before 7.30pm.

The Westgate’s owner Landsec had previously objected to Oxfordshire County Council‘s congestion charge.

Clare Martin, Westgate’s new centre director (Image: Westgate)

It said that introducing the fee was not appropriate while Botley Road remained shut for Network Rail works at the train station, and it wanted good transport to get into the city centre.

Mrs Martin said: “In terms of it now, we’re still working really closely with the council. We’re championing clear communication around it.

“In the centre, we have quite a lot of information about what it is about, why, how you pay it – information like that.

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“But equally it’s working with the travel operators to make sure that there are these improved links, that obviously the park and ride has been extended which is really important to us.

“Making it easy for people to actually travel in and out of the city centre is very important.”

Mrs Martin said that despite the congestion charge, people will still travel to the Westgate’s car park which can be cheaper than council car parks.

Westgate (Image: Westgate)

General view of Westgate (Image: Ed Nix)

She said there is “consistent traffic” coming into its multi-storey car and added: “As much as we actually promote park and ride as our first choice to access the city centre, the reality is for everybody it’s not always practical.

“It can be difficult if you’ve got young families or buggies and we obviously operate things like accessible parking from our car park.”

According to Mrs Martin, the Westgate had a “golden quarter” last year at around the same time the congestion charge was introduced.

“The last three months [of the year] we had our busiest ever sales period,” she added, explaining this was “very much” down to the “strength of brands” at the centre which brought in “new guest who maybe don’t come to Oxford as frequently as a regular shopper”.

Pedestrian numbers in nearby Queen Street increased by one per cent during the period November 2025 to February 2026 compared to the same period the previous year.

But this newspaper previously reported traders believe the congestion charge is “deterring even loyal customers” away from the city centre.

“As soon as the congestion charge kicked in, we have experienced very troubling times,” one restaurant owner recently said.