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Residents’ groups tell London Assembly investigation that need for change has been overstated by Mayor of London.

Ross Lydall writing in The Standard 23 April 2025

Plans from London mayor Sir Sadiq Khan to part-pedestrianise Oxford Street have been described by residents as “senseless” and a “vanity project”.

They told a London Assembly inquiry that the mayor had overstated the need for a radical overhaul of the famous high street in central London. They also expressed concern at the lack of information provided by the mayor about what the pedestrianisation will look like, in particular on how buses would be re-routed away from Oxford Street.

A “field trip” to the area was held on Wednesday morning by the assembly’s planning committee to inform its response to Sir Sadiq’s consultation on establishing a mayoral development corporation to gain control over Oxford Street and the surrounding area from Westminster council and Camden council.

Andrew Boff, the Tory planning committee chair, said the 25-member cross-party assembly, which he also chairs, had the power to reject Sir Sadiq’s proposal to establish a mayoral development corporation.

“He needs to bring an awful lot more detail about the actual pedestrianisation,” Mr Boff said.

“It’s one of those things that sounds very easy until you look at the challenges. Where are the buses going to go? Why are cyclists going to be banned from using Oxford Street?

“Will it be a safe environment when pedestrianised, when we know that there’s 40,000 crimes reported on this street every year? These are the kind of details we need from the mayor before we reach our conclusions.”

Michael Bolt, honorary secretary of the Marylebone Association, said the “organic, ongoing improvement” of Oxford Street that began pre-pandemic and has seen the pavements widened and fewer buses had resulted in a “pretty satisfactory balance” between the needs of pedestrians, residents and businesses.

Air quality had also improved due to the introduction of hybrid buses and zero emission capable black taxis. “It’s yesterday’s battle,” Mr Bolt told The Standard.

“A great deal has been done over a great number of years to achieve organically the position we are now in. This is what is often not recognised – that things are constantly changing.

“Wigmore Street has got approximately three times as much traffic on it as Oxford Street has. Quite often it is tail to tail.

“We have a situation where we have a free run for buses and taxis down Oxford Street, which the mayor proposes to close, to stuff all those down a street that is already three times as crowded as Oxford Street.

“The whole thing seems senseless, because what we have at the moment is working. What is proposed will only work for the big organisations, the big business, that benefit from piazza-fication.

“The ultimate aim is to create a sort of piazza effect of al fresco dining, open air events - the sort of thing that large corporations like because it is a driver of footfall to the area, and it involved privatisation of the public realm.”

Sir Sadiq believes the proposed changes to Oxford Street would boost it as a shopping and visitor destination and make it safer and more pleasant for pedestrians.

Precise details of how traffic that currently uses Oxford Street would be re-routed is yet to be published by Transport for London.

However, several residents warned there was a risk of creating new dangers rather than reducing road danger.

Tim Lord, of the Soho Society, said many collisions happened on corners, when buses turned. “With this pedestrianisation scheme, you will have more buses turning than you have now,” he said.

He said there was a lack of information about the mayor’s plans. “It’s not right to take powers without clarity on what is being proposed,” he said.

“Wigmore Street doesn’t really have any buses on it – it just has normal traffic. If you put buses on it then it will congest.

“I live quite near Regent Street and you can see it every day – that [road] goes really slowly. It can take an hour from the BBC to Piccadilly Circus. We just want our city to work.

“I think buses are really convenient for a lot of people who don’t want to take the Tube.

“The things that people are concerned about on Oxford Street are safety and security, having their phones nicked, the lack of somewhere to sit and poor retail diversity.

“If you want to get that right you need to look at the level of commercial rent and ask: is that working in the public interest?”

Mike Dunn, a Mayfair resident who previously stood as an anti-pedestrianisation candidate in elections to Westminster council, said the changes were “unnecessary”.

He said: “The problems that Oxford Street faced traffic-wise a few years ago have more or less been resolved.

“The re-routing of some of the buses and the cancellation of others has led to a situation where now, in general terms, traffic flows pretty smoothly down Oxford Street.”

Asked why he believed Sir Sadiq was pursuing the proposals, Mr Dunn said: “I think it is a vanity project.

“I would suggest that the assembly tell him: ‘Cobbler, stick to your last.’ I think that he has enough on his plate at the moment with crime, with traffic, that he doesn’t need to be expanding his horizons into pedestrianisation of Oxford Street and taking over licensing policy for Westminster and Camden.”

Hina Bokhari, Lib-Dem group leader on the London Assembly, said: “I have heard a lot of concern.

“I think it’s right for these groups to be heard. There is concern because they feel there is a lack of consultation and engagement.

“I think the mayor has to do a lot more work when it comes to how he approaches the next steps towards the pedestrianisation of Oxford Street.

“We can’t do it without building trust or having transparency and openness. Those are the things I’m really worried about right now.

“I don’t want to go forward if I don’t feel as if people aren’t going to be happy about the way it is being done. The process has to be right.

“We are really keen to see Oxford Street becoming a vibrant street. We want Oxford Street to be inviting, to be environmentally friendly, to thrive. That lack of engagement is the problem.”

Caroline Russell, a Green party member of the assembly, said Oxford Street needed to change.

“If it was pedestrianised and had more green, more seating, more toilets it could become a place that people wanted to visit and wanted to hang out in,” she said.

“At the moment, there is no information from the mayor about what the plans are for the MDC [mayoral development corporation].

“The lack of information and the lack of plans is leading people to be worried about all sorts of details. Without that information, we don’t know if those fears are founded or not.

“It could be a really incredible asset for London. I don’t think the status quo is good enough. I think London can do so much better.”

The mayor’s office has been approached for comment.

London boroughs have been encouraged to do what they can to launch pedestrianisation schemes

Andy Silvester writing in The Times Wednesday, April 09 2025

London could be set for a revival of the alfresco schemes that sprang up across the capital in the aftermath of the pandemic, City Hall hopes.

The Times has seen a letter from two of the mayor of London’s key deputies — Howard Dawber and Justine Simons — calling on London’s boroughs to “do what you can to support popular and exciting ideas like alfresco dining and late-night openings” during the spring and summer.

Soho was largely pedestrianised in the summers of 2020 and 2021, as pubs, bars and restaurants spilt out onto pavements. Many in the West End credit the scheme for keeping businesses afloat during a historically tough period for the industry.

Campaigners have since been pushing Westminster city council, which governs the famous nightlife district, to bring the scheme back.

• London’s nightlife is as vital as finance — we can’t let it die

A City Hall source told The Times that “late-night openings and alfresco dining can create a real buzz on high streets, as we saw after the pandemic”.

The letter tells boroughs that they should not wait for the outcome of a pilot scheme that will give Sir Sadiq Khan the ability to override licensing decisions made by individual boroughs on anything from opening hours to alcohol sales. Khan has spent much of his third term as mayor pushing boroughs towards more liberal attitudes on housing developments and licensing.

The hospitality industry has been hit with a raft of increased costs this month, as higher national insurance contributions and an increased minimum wage both kicked in.

Businesses in the heart of the capital fear worse is to come, however, as a proposed business rates relief system could lead to West End businesses paying higher rates to subsidise lower rates for those in less in-demand areas.

Allen Simpson, deputy chief executive of UK Hospitality, said: “If Soho was currently a pedestrianised, alfresco slice of Florence in the middle of central London, and someone wanted to put a load of car-carrying roads through it, everyone would be up in arms.

“This is a good thing: I’m glad the mayor’s office is pushing on it, and it’s important that it comes alongside a strategic approach to licensing generally, which recognises how vital the sector is and how many extra costs and regulations have been piled on in recent years.”

Khan has already butted heads with the council over decisions usually reserved for local boroughs, including the opening of a late-night jazz club and a revamp of Oxford Street.

Westminster city council said: “Westminster has the most pubs and clubs of any local authority, so we already have extensive expertise in supporting business to thrive while balancing the views of local people and the police.

“We grant the vast majority of licensing applications, which are only refused where safety concerns are raised by the police or significant disruption is likely.”

On the wider proposals to give the mayor more powers over licensing, it added: “Local authorities and licensing professionals should be represented on any working group.”

FT Published APR 7 2025

I read with interest Joshua Oliver’s despatch from Cannes where the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, was attending the property industry’s annual conference (Interview, March 20).

Khan told Oliver that local residents were “dictating” how Oxford Street should develop and it was the residents that had ruled out his own favoured intervention — pedestrianisation.

In fact, the detailed plans to improve Oxford Street, which had to be abandoned following the mayor’s announcement in September, reflected two years of hard work and consensus building involving local council, the property industry, businesses large and small who had agreed to fund it, the New West End Company, a partnership of 600 UK and international retailers, restaurateurs, hoteliers, galleries and property owners, and the Business Improvement District body — plus two residents who were invited to watch the process develop. I was one of the residents. To suggest that we were doing any “dictating” is laughable.

The mayor has now issued a consultation on the establishment of a “mayoral development corporation” under the Localism Act in order to take planning and control of the traffic on Oxford Street away from Westminster’s elected Labour councillors in favour of himself and eight business leaders, selected by him. It’s a bit of a stretch as the act is intended to empower local communities, not intentionally and expensively ignore them, and development corporations are meant to do development — this one won’t as Oxford Street is already developed.

His argument that only he can help because Oxford Street crosses a borough boundary is also misleading. All of Oxford Street sits happily in Westminster. Its only by drawing a map for the new MDC that randomly includes New Oxford Street (which is not in fact to be pedestrianised) that he can tick that box.

While keen to interfere in Westminster Labour councillors’ well supported plans, he appears to do very little to get rid of the “American candy shops”, which are not a result of the buses and taxis that currently drive past them on Oxford Street. Candy shops are paying higher rents than real shops which is why property companies are happy to have them as tenants and look the other way when the rent is paid in cash.

As the mayor is in charge of policing it would be to everyone’s benefit if he abandoned his MDC plans, left the council to get on with improving Oxford Street and implementing its plan, and spent more of his time dealing with crime issues, with 30,000 reported crimes a year in the West End where 80 per cent of the victims are visitors to the capital.

Tim Lord

Chair, The Soho Society, London W1, UK

Rachael Burford, Chief Political Correspondent writing in the Evening Standard 5 April.

Paul Fisher, who was elected a Labour councillor in the West End in 2022, said: ‘Sadiq Khan has failed London’

A Westminster councillor has quit Labour and defected to the Tories blaming what he described as Sir Sadiq Khan’s “vanity projects”, such as the pedestrianisation of Oxford Street.

Announcing he was joining the Conservatives, Councillor Paul Fisher said the Mayor of London was more interested in planning schemes “than addressing crime and the very real fears that many local people have about their safety”.

He added that he also did not agree with the Labour Government’s plans “to tax, spend and borrow its way to prosperity”.

Labour won control of the flagship central London council for the first time at the local elections in 2022.

But since then the party has lost three local by-elections. Sir Sadiq’s decision to seize control of Oxford Street from the local authority and part pedestrianise it was partly blamed for the loses.

Labour now hold 28 seats on Westminster council to the Conservative’s 26.

Barrister Mr Fisher has represented the West End ward, which covers Oxford Street, Regent Street, Bond Street, Fitzrovia, Marylebone, Mayfair and Soho, since 2022.

He said: “I am joining the Conservative Party for three reasons: Stagnation, Sadiq and Security.

“Under a Labour government, our country is being pushed into economic stagnation with a tax on jobs stifling economic growth. Labour’s “solution” to Britain’s problems is to tax, spend and borrow its way to prosperity.

“As Mayor, Sadiq Khan has failed London. He is more focused on vanity projects such as Oxford Street pedestrianisation than addressing crime and the very real fears that many local people have about their safety and security.”

He added: “I am disappointed that the Labour Party I have worked hard for over many years is not delivering solutions to the problems we all face.

“The Conservative Party in Westminster has shown me they are listening, and they have a passion for finding pragmatic answers to the problems of our City.”

Leader of Westminster council Adam Hug told the Standard: “We are deeply disappointed to hear of Paul’s decision, despite his being elected less than three years ago by Labour voters in the West End.

“As a council we are committed taking action to address crime and anti social behaviour through investing in CCTV, new city inspectors and other measure after the Tories withdrew from the scene on these issues.

“We will continue to stand up for local residents whilst growing the local economy and improving the performance of our services.”