Owner blames traffic filters for restaurant sale

Oct 16, 2024

The owner of several Oxford food businesses said he sold one of his restaurants because of the impact of traffic filters.

In an Instagram post, Clinton Pugh, father of Hollywood actor Florence Pugh, said he had sold Cafe Coco on Cowley Road "after 31+ years" due to a "traffic calming disaster" caused by Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs).

He said he had lost about £900,000.

Oxfordshire County Council said LTNs were intended to make streets "easier to get around" and improve community wellbeing.

Mr Pugh said that the Cowley LTNs "took away parking spaces and single yellow lines", leaving no space for parking at night times.

"But the biggest bugbear is that they didn't introduce any buses from the Park and Ride," he said.

"So anyone who wants to go out in the evening and get to the Cowley Road, can't park."

Mr Pugh said that caused his business to decline and Cafe Coco had been sold to "two lovely people, Felipe and Fernando," by an insolvency practitioner.

"My family had been incredibly helpful, especially my daughter has given me a huge amount of money to get us out of this, so I can end up retiring" he said.

"But it didn't make any difference because the effect, unfortunately, was just too large."

He said he knew of 25 Cowley Road businesses that had closed but restauranteurs were "too scared to say anything" because English was their second language.

Mr Pugh said one of them "was nearly in tears" as he was struggling to stay afloat.

"They are literally killing small independents."

An Oxfordshire County Council spokesperson said the LTNs were "designed to work with other measures to make it easier to get around and improve the health and wellbeing of our communities”.

The Coalition for Health Streets and Active Travel said that based on recent data by the Department for Transport, the Cowley LTNs "appear to have reduced road collisions by more than half", saving "more than four casualties per year".

Charlie Hicks, Labour councillor for Cowley, said there were "fewer families receiving dreaded calls from the police, fewer people being injured, and less strain on our John Radcliffe A&E department".

"I appreciate that we want to make a greener and cleaner Oxford - we all want it safe," Mr Pugh said, adding it would be "nice" to see an alternative.

"Why don't they just make some of the roads one-way and make proper cycle paths that are not dangerous?"

Mr Pugh said he received "many touching messages" with people's memories of visiting Cafe Coco.

He thanked the "amazing group of people" who had worked there.

"We had fun building it and running it," he said.

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Oxfordshire County Council

Coalition for Healthy Streets and Active Travel