UK school faces teacher shortage over climate mandates

A private school in Oxford says it is facing a staffing shortage due to the city council’s climate mandates.

Oxford has imposed low-traffic neighborhoods (LTNs) — areas where cars are restricted from driving through residential streets — to reduce carbon emissions. The mandate is part of a larger climate scheme designed to carve Oxford into six “15-minute neighborhoods.” These areas also seek to reduce carbon emissions by restricting residents from driving beyond their own community centers for “non-essential needs.”

But the LTNs are causing so much traffic congestion that a nine-minute bus journey now takes nearly an hour and car rides are 30 minutes longer than before, says Magdalen College School. This has led to teachers resigning from the private Oxfordshire school over the arduous commute, while potential replacements are turning down job offers from the school for the same reason.

“We are worried about the school's ability to recruit and retain staff; we have already seen people refuse job offers, and others leave only a few weeks after starting owing to the challenge of getting to the school site,” school administrators wrote in a letter to the Oxfordshire City Council. “We hear from state partners that this is a key concern for them too.”

But Magdalen is unlikely to receive a satisfactory response from the council, which has already made clear that at least three of the LTNs are permanent. Key roads in those zones have been blocked off to encourage more walking and cycling, reports the Telegraph.

Schools are not the only victims of LTNs, however. Businesses are beginning to close due to reduced traffic from the climate mandate. In August it was revealed that LTNs have caused Cafe Tarifa, a bar and restaurant in Oxford, to close its doors. Cafe Tarifa is owned by Clinton Pugh, whose daughter, award-winning actress Florence Pugh, used to work with him in the cafe. 

“People don’t want to come here any more, staff do not want to come around here. Who wants to be stuck in traffic for hours? Who wants to spend hours looking for a space to park?” said the 65-year-old restaurateur. He erected a billboard protesting against the mandate, but was fined for doing so.

“It’s the small people who suffer, those who need their car to go to work, the mothers who need to drive their kids around.”

Silvester’s Stores, a hardware store which has been in Oxford for 112 years, is also closing down this year. The store’s owner Stuart Silvester says the store has survived some of history’s worst events but was destroyed by climate mandates.

“It’s an absolute disaster to be honest,” he said, according to Oxford Mail. “Thankfully the business has come through two world wars and the pandemic, but LTNs have hit traders the most. They didn't listen to the traders. God knows how people are going to afford to keep running.”