diff --git a/run_tests.sh b/run_tests.sh
index ff9870a29b..feda1934d0 100755
--- a/run_tests.sh
+++ b/run_tests.sh
@@ -46,20 +46,6 @@ function run_tests {
 }
 
 function run_pep8 {
-    # Check the installed pep8 matches what is in the tox.ini,
-    # so the local test matches the jenkins gate tests
-    TOX_PEP_VERSION=$(grep "pep8==" $BASE_DIR/tox.ini | sed "s/.*pep8==//")
-    INST_PEP_VERSION=$(pep8 --version 2>/dev/null)
-    if [[ "$TOX_PEP_VERSION" != "$INST_PEP_VERSION" ]]; then
-        if [[ -z "$INST_PEP_VERSION" ]]; then
-            echo "ERROR pep8 is not installed, please install pep8 $TOX_PEP_VERSION" >&2
-        else
-            echo "ERROR installed version of pep8 $INST_PEP_VERSION"  >&2
-            echo "does not match the required version in tox.ini ($TOX_PEP_VERSION)" >&2
-            echo "please install the required version of pep8" >&2
-        fi
-        exit 1
-    fi
     echo "Running pep8..."
     PEP8_OPTIONS="--exclude=$PEP8_EXCLUDE --repeat"
     PEP8_INCLUDE="bin/heat-cfn bin/heat-boto bin/heat-api-cfn bin/heat-api bin/heat-engine heat tools setup.py heat/testing/runner.py"
diff --git a/tools/test-requires b/tools/test-requires
index 3c096742de..31d534f457 100644
--- a/tools/test-requires
+++ b/tools/test-requires
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ nose
 nosexcover
 openstack.nose_plugin>=0.7
 paramiko
-pep8==1.1
+pep8==1.3.4
 python-glanceclient
 sphinx>=1.1.2
 Babel