THERE are few subjects more divisive in our city than any kind of attempt to stop cars using certain roads.

In general, you either love these ideas or you hate them.

For those who feel any sort of concern about these schemes, the fact that Oxfordshire County Council is now making a habit of forcing them through with little or no consultation is hugely grating.

Even some people who might be in favour of such ideas in principle can get irate when they are foisted on residents without any discussion beforehand.

Walton Street is obviously the biggest example, where the council decided to shut the road for a trial period and then ask residents what they think about it.

The plans for new two bus gates in the city centre, revealed last week, have been almost as divisive.

We have no doubt the reaction to today’s front page, about plans to create a large new ‘low-traffic neighbourhood’ in East Oxford, will be the same.

It instinctively feels undemocratic for the council to do something major like this, and then see whether people put up with it.

Counter to that feeling, then, we would make two comments.

Firstly, if you did run a full consultation about all of these schemes before you launched them and then only went ahead if the majority of people were in favour, you might never even start them.

There's nothing worse, in modern democracy, than reports, consultations, enquiries going on so long that it stops any actual action being taken.

What if we had taken a vote on whether to ban the sale of petrol and diesel vehicles?

The second point that we would make is, although it may feel as if our county council is forcing this traffic-cutting schemes on our city – this is a Conservative-led council: not a party traditionally thought of as being tree-hugging environmentalists.

For that very fact alone, that this bunch of Tories are pushing through revolutionary green schemes so drastic they divide the city, surely they must get some credit.