Advertisement

London needs a new plan to pedestrianise Oxford Street

No traffic: the Mayor's Oxford Street plan
No traffic: the Mayor's Oxford Street plan

During the last mayoral election campaign Sadiq Khan promised to pedestrianise Oxford Street. Perhaps the world’s most famous shopping street, it’s become a congested and polluted thoroughfare and is home to three of England’s 10 most perilous pedestrian crossings.

The stakes are high. The West End, centred on Oxford Street, is a serious national economic asset. But it faces fierce competition both from other cities — Chinese tourists prefer Paris to London — and from the internet.

House of Fraser has already announced it’s closing its Oxford Street flagship, while John Lewis is planning to invest millions in its store but only if the local environment improves. But if nothing happens the local environment will only get worse.

At the end of this year the Elizabeth line is due to start disgorging tens of thousands of extra passengers into the area every day. Transport for London says that unless more space is opened up the experience will be like leaving a premier league football match.

There was only one problem with Khan’s promise. Oxford Street is not part of Mayor’s “strategic road network”. It belongs to Westminster council. For first two years of his term Khan and Westminster seemed to work well enough together. In plans published earlier this year the west half of Oxford Street was to be closed to all traffic. Bus services would be cut and those that remained re-directed.

Now Westminster’s leadership has declared that pedestrianisation is “off the table for good”. Big “P” politics has certainly played a role. Why help a Labour Mayor deliver an election promise? But so has small “p” politics. Councillors spent a lot of time knocking on doors in the run-up to May’s local election campaign and residents weren’t shy of voicing their conviction that pedestrianisation would lead to increased traffic on their streets.

What now? Westminster says it’s going to come up with its own proposals. But this isn’t necessarily a victory for local interests. TfL was going to spend a lot of money on the area, which it is now threatening to spend elsewhere. And without action the local residential environment is destined to get worse.

But the Mayor will have to budge as well. Pedestrianisation can mean many things — from car-free days to closing parts of the street to traffic during the busiest times. TfL could learn from New York, where new schemes are trialled with minimal cost to see how they work in practice.

It’s vital though that Westminster and Mayor find a way through, for the good of London’s priceless West End and the UK as a whole. Remember too, that the Mayor and Westminster both insist that they want the Government to give the capital more power to govern itself. It’s hard to make the case while they are scrapping over a great national asset.

  • Ben Rogers is the director of Centre for London