Can you take an ox to Oxford?

Summary

Can you take an ox to Oxford? At the end of last month, Oxford introduced a £5 congestion charge for passenger cars driving through the city centre. Some vehicles are exempt, like taxis, emergency vehicles, and delivery vans – but what about animals?i need one of the city councillors following me to advise whether an oxen-driven cart would be chargeable under the congestion chargemadeline odent@oldenoughtosay.comi mean they are technically zero emissions i guess so you could probably make an argument for driving one down the cornmarket 20 Nov 2025 at 12:10 I’m not a city councillor or a lawyer, but I tried to work out the answer anyway.The first thing I found was a “Charging order” on the Oxfordshire County Council website, which looks like the legal definition of the congestion charge. Paragraph 3 says “A relevant vehicle is a Class M1 vehicle that is not [non-chargeable or permitted]” – where “non-chargeable” and “permitted” describes the various exemptions.The order defines Class M1 vehicles as “those falling within class M1(a) and class M1(b) as specified in Schedule 1 of the Vehicle Classes Regulations, which refers to another bit of UK legislation.That legislation is the Road User Charging and Workplace Parking Levy (Classes of Motor Vehicles) (England) Regulations 2001 (really rolls off the tongue), the full text of which is available online. Here’s the section we’re interested in:Category M: Motor vehicles with at least four wheels used for the carriage of passengersIn this Part, references to a “motor vehicle” are to a motor vehicle with or without a semi-trailer which—(a) has at least four wheels; (b) has an unladen mass exceeding 400kg or an engine with net power exceeding 15kW; (c) is used for the carriage of passengers; and (d) is not a motor caravan within Class L(a) or Class L(b) specified in Part III above.Class M1(a) A motor vehicle which comprises no more than eight seats in addition to the driver’s seat.Class M1(b) A motor vehicle as defined in Cl...