Jericho is Oxford’s coolest quarter – according to The Times, anyway, featured in their Times Top Ten Best Places to Live in 2019! They’re a local and a destination shopping neighbourhood, just ten minutes’ walk from the city centre, with 40 plus shopfront spaces, including shops, cafes, pubs, restaurants, bars, hairdressers, a yoga studio, cinema, letting agencies, off licence, estate agents and osteopath. The vast majority are independent, family run businesses.

The Jericho Traders Association was formed in July 2019 to safeguard and promote the area’s special cosmopolitan atmosphere, in response to the closure of the southern access to Walton Street by the Council (since reopened in May 2021).  A comprehensive business impact survey was carried out and it revealed that 82% of Jericho businesses had seen a negative impact on footfall and turnover as a direct result of the road closure. It was devastating to a previously thriving street. 

Many businesses are concerned about the new Council’s plans to install a ZEZ in the southern part of Walton Street. This would again cut Jericho off from customers arriving by car from the south and west and lead to an inevitably precipitous decline in footfall and turnover, not to mention displacement of traffic onto other roads. That said, the Jericho Traders Association very much support better-designed, meaningful traffic-calming measures to deter non ‘destination-Jericho’ drivers.  

Independent Jericho has been launched by the Jericho Traders Association to celebrate and promote our diverse range of shops.