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Florence Pugh‘s father has sold his last remaining cafe in Oxford after saying low traffic neighbourhoods have left him facing losses of up to £1million.
Clinton Pugh, 66, blamed the sale of bar and restaurant Kazbar on Cowley Road on the controversial traffic calming scheme, which he previously branded a war on motorists.
It comes just months after he sold nearby Café Coco, where Florence used to work as a teenager, after nearly 32 years of ownership.
Mr Pugh has previously spoken out against the ‘hated’ LTN scheme – first introduced Oxford in 2021 – which prevents cars from taking shortcuts down residential streets.
He said the eco-measures were the ‘final nail in the coffin’ for his businesses and decimated his takings.
Mr Pugh told the Oxford Mail: ‘I sold the Kazbar on the day Donald Trump announced his tariffs, and I was so relieved to get out of it.
‘It would be bad enough just to have what’s happened with the Bank of England and the pressures of inflation.
‘[Then] you throw in the restrictions on the Cowley Road. The LTNs were the main nail in the coffin.’
He said Kazbar’s turnover had dropped ‘significantly’ over the past three years – and he had lost up to £1million since the LTNs were put in.
Clinton Pugh pictured outside of his restaurant Kazbar which is a tapas bar on Cowley Road, Oxford. He has now sold the business
Mr Pugh has previously spoken out against the ‘hated’ LTN scheme – first introduced Oxford in 2021 – which prevents cars from taking shortcuts down residential streets
Low Traffic Neighbourhood work by blocking cars from going down residential streets
Mr Pugh said business in Oxford, where more ‘anti-car’ measures such as bus gates are planned, has become ‘untenable’.
The businessman previously claimed that things had got so bad he had to take a handout from his Oscar-nominated daughter Florence to pay his staff’s wages.
Mr Pugh has owned three businesses in Oxford – Cafe Coco, KazBar and Cafe Tarifa and worked on the Cowley Road for more than three decades.
Spanish-inspired Cafe Tarifa was repossessed in 2023.
His four children – Don’t Worry Darling actress Florence, Game of Thrones actor Toby Sebastian actress and voice coach Arabella Gibbins and actress Rafaela Pugh – all cut their teeth in Clinton’s restaurants, helping out for pocket money and going to school in the local area.
Over the last 31 years, the restaurant owner encouraged the gentrification and diversity of Oxford’s Cowley Road.
Controversial LTNs were installed in the Cowley area in May 2022 – with Oxfordshire County Council facing rabid opposition to them ever since.
Florence Pugh at the Disney & The Cinema Society host a special screening of ‘Thunderbolts*’ in April
Mr Pugh has previously spoken out against the ‘hated’ Low Traffic Neighbourhood scheme – introduced in the city in 2021
Café CoCo has been running in Oxford since 1992 but now Mr Pugh sold it in October after footfall declined 25 per cent
The LTNs aim to reduce through traffic and make neighbourhoods quieter and became more common during the pandemic, when councils wanted to encourage cycling as a form of commuting.
But over the last two years, bollards have been ripped from the ground, run over and set on fire, while the wooden planters cutting off streets graffitied and their plants pulled out.
And while Clinton says that ‘no one is against a greener, cleaner Oxford’, he said the plans had cut off vital trade to the area.
When the initiative was first introduced, Clinton said takings at Café Coco, which opened in 1992 and has counted Radiohead and Supergrass as patrons, fell 25 per cent as footfall plummeted.
And he was later threatened with a £2,500 fine after he erected a banner on the side of the cafe criticising the scheme.
In November 2020, Clinton pasted a billboard protesting the initiative on the side of Cafe Coco – finishing it with the rallying call: ‘So much for democracy! Help us fight this arrogance.’
Mr Pugh has also been at war with Oxford City Council who ordered him to take down a huge sign outside his restaurant calling out the ‘ill thought-out traffic experiment’
The businessman previously claimed that things had got so bad he had to take a handout from his Oscar-nominated daughter Florence to pay his staff’s wages
Zero Emission Zone signs can be found throughout Oxford city centre
But Oxford City Council demanded the sign be taken down – only for Clinton to paste another banner on top, emblazoned with ‘Censored!’, ‘So much for democracy!’ and ‘1984?
It comes as LTNS were last month described as an ‘experiment’ that has ‘not worked’ after being rolled out in Oxford.
Oxfordshire County Council is now run by a Liberal Democrat and Green alliance, after no party gained enough seats for a majority in the 2021 election.
Councillor Eddie Reeves, leader of the local Conservative group, said that under a Tory administration they would have not continued with the scheme.
He said: ‘The Lib Dems and Greens came into office to much fanfare in 2021 and put the rocket boosters behind LTNs.
‘The LTN experiment has not worked […] they have left a lot of people feeling as though the council do not listen to them.’
Liberal Democrat leader of Oxfordshire County Council Liz Leffman said: ‘The LTNs were introduced by the Conservatives long before we became the administration.
‘There are people living in low traffic neighbourhoods who really like the fact that their children can safely walk and cycle to school, and that seems to me to be absolutely a priority.’
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