# Oxford, Oxfordshire

URL: https://performanceandprestige.co.uk/car-hire/oxford

Performance & Prestige has no depot, branch or rental counter in Oxford and holds no premises there. Every lease is delivered to an address you choose and collected from it afterwards.

Oxford is a difficult city to keep a car in and an excellent one to keep a car near, which is most of what shapes a lease here. The centre is a working medieval street plan with a zero emission zone laid over part of it, bus gates on several approaches and college lanes surfaced in setts. North Oxford, Summertown, Headington, Boars Hill and the villages out towards Woodstock, Wytham and Kidlington are a different proposition entirely, with room on the drive and the ring road close by. We deliver to all of it and collect from wherever the term ends. Bicester, Blenheim and the eastern edge of the Cotswolds are all a short run out, which is the real argument for having something interesting on the drive here. We hold no premises in Oxford and there is nothing for you to travel to.

Typical delivery: The charging streets and the bus gates decide this before distance does. If the address sits inside or beyond one of them we work out an approach that does not cross it, which occasionally means coming at the city from the other side of the ring road. Then the street itself: a North Oxford villa drive settles the matter, while a college lane or a terrace off the Iffley Road does not. Access to a college or a school site needs arranging with whoever holds the gate. The window is put to you by a person and agreed before anything is committed.

Oxford's zero emission zone covers a small number of streets in the city centre and charges vehicles that are not zero-emission during its hours, the council publishes the current charge, and we check where your car and your address sit relative to it before you commit rather than afterwards. Physically, the problems are old surfaces and tight corners: Merton Street and the lanes around it are laid in setts that are unkind to a low splitter taken at an angle, and several college entrances are archways rather than gateways. Out in North Oxford and Summertown the drives are generous and the handover is an ordinary one. Send the postcode and we will say which of those two Oxfords you are in.

Postcode areas covered: OX.

## How does the zero emission zone affect a car you deliver?

It applies to a small central area rather than the city as a whole, and within it a petrol car is a charged vehicle during the operating hours regardless of how clean it is - the standard is zero emissions at the tailpipe, not a Euro rating. The council publishes the streets, the hours and the current charge. Most Oxford addresses sit well outside it and most journeys never touch it. What we do is check the position for your specific car and your specific street before anything is agreed, and tell you plainly which charges sit with us and which are billed on.

## Where can a car stand in the centre for a handover?

Very few places, and none of them by accident. The core is threaded with bus gates, restricted streets and loading bays with short enforced windows, and the college lanes that look empty are usually private and gated. Hotel forecourts where somebody is expecting you are the practical answer, along with the park and ride sites on the ring road, which are an unglamorous but genuinely sensible place to meet if you are coming from out of town. Tell us where you are and we will name a point rather than suggesting you find one.

## What is worth driving to from Oxford?

West on the A44 through Woodstock past Blenheim and straight into the eastern Cotswolds, which is the obvious one and still the best. South, the Berkshire downs and the lanes under the Ridgeway around Uffington and Wantage are open, fast and almost empty on a weekday. East, the Chilterns start beyond Watlington, and the B480 and the lanes around Stonor and Turville are tight, wooded and slow in the right way. Henley is close enough for lunch. None of it involves a motorway unless you choose one, which is unusual for somewhere this well connected.

## Is Bicester Heritage worth the trip?

For anyone interested enough in cars to be leasing one, yes. The site is a former RAF bomber station given over almost entirely to specialist motoring businesses - restoration, engineering, storage, the trades that keep old cars running - and it opens its gates to visitors on published dates through the year. It is a short run north of the city on the A34 or the B430, and the road out there is pleasant rather than a chore. If your dates fall on one of the open days, expect the approach roads to be busy and go early.

## Does the university calendar change anything?

It changes the traffic more than most people expect. The start and end of each term move a great many people and a great deal of luggage through narrow streets on the same weekend, and the roads around the colleges and the station become slow for a day at a time. Graduation days and the early-summer commemoration period do a smaller version of it. Give us the date with the address and we will pick the hour around it, which is far less trouble than sitting in Longwall Street with a transporter behind you.

## Do you cover the county as well as the city?

Woodstock, Kidlington, Bicester, Abingdon, Wallingford, Thame, Witney, Burford, Chipping Norton and the villages between them are all part of the same run, along with the country-house hotels on the Oxfordshire side of the Cotswolds. Many of those addresses are gravel sweeps behind gates, and the practical questions are the surface, the turning space and who is expecting us. Delivery at a house outside Woodstock and collection at the end of the term from an address in London or at Heathrow is one arrangement rather than two, quoted against the real addresses.

*Pre-launch note: the driver criteria, deposits, excesses and mileage allowances quoted here are read from Performance & Prestige's own catalogue data, which is still being confirmed with the owner and the insurer. Read them as the shape of the figures rather than as a quotation. What binds is your written quote and your agreement.*