THE word 'astonishment' might not even begin to cover the reaction of some people in Oxford today.

After nearly a year of furious wrangling, debating and even death threats (well, against one man) the county council is now days away from throwing the whole Walton Street closure out.

Well, at least the protesters seem to have got what they wanted.

But hold on a second – read the detail of Thursday's meeting agenda and it quickly becomes clear that a major reason for considering reopening the road is that there are even bigger plans afoot to turn the whole of Jericho – or a large part of it – into a 'Low Traffic Neighbourhood'.

This could see Walton Street and neighbouring roads all banned to through-traffic permanently.

As for the policing of such a new set of rules, to decide whether someone was really driving to a shop or just cutting through to get to the other half of the city, the devil will be in the detail.

One thing already seems clear though – with the amount of anger that other Low-Traffic Neighbourhood plans have already caused, the war over Walton Street is far from over.