Oxford Street Again
Latest … this letter from Westminster Amenity Societies to the Mayor
Westminster Amenity Societies Forum
13 November 2024
Sadiq Khan
Mayor of London
City Hall
Kamal Chunchie Way
London
E16 1ZE
by e-mail: mayor@london.gov.uk
Dear Mr Khan,
Oxford Street Pedestrianisation and proposed Mayoral Development Corporation
The Westminster Amenity Societies Forum (“WASF”) represents the 22 recognised amenity societies in Westminster.
We refer to your press release (the “Release”) dated 16 September 2024 proposing the creation of a Mayoral Development Corporation (“MDC”) for Oxford Street in order to facilitate its partial pedestrianisation.
1) Concerns about the lack of consultation and the immediate impact of the Release
Previous plans for the pedestrianisation of Oxford Street were rejected by Westminster City Council (“WCC”) after Transport for London (“TFL”) failed to resolve the concerns of local business and residential communities in 2018.
Instead, WCC has spent the last two years working up a new scheme for Oxford Street (the “WCC Scheme”) with TFL and the New West End Company (“NWEC”). That scheme built on the pavement widening carried out in response to the pandemic but retained access for buses and taxis. The WCC Scheme had progressed to the point where work had already begun, with council funds allocated and further business funding agreed in principle. There was extensive support for the project from local communities and businesses. The WCC Scheme, including greening, new pedestrian crossings and additional space for pedestrians, would have been implemented in 2025 and completed in 2026.
In response to the uncertainty created by the Release, NWEC withdrew its financial commitment to the WCC Scheme and it has now been abandoned. This has wasted several millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money and already constrained council resources and officer time. It has also delayed, possibly for years, any meaningful improvements to the public realm on Oxford Street. The fact that the Release was issued without consultation with WCC (or even TFL) has undermined confidence in your office. Unfortunately, it has also undermined confidence in the new Labour administration at national level just when confidence in good government needs to return.
While your announcement, as yet, lacks any detail, it is entirely possible that the removal of buses and taxis from part of Oxford Street will, once again, be unsupported by the local community and businesses, and prove impractical. Local people and smaller businesses who would be most impacted by the change, and those who have the most knowledge of the area, remain of the view that removing all traffic from this main east west arterial route is not practical. It is, as yet, unclear whether what you will propose this time round would make pedestrianisation work. However, simply ignoring the people who live and work here will not address the well-rehearsed concerns that applied in 2018.
2) Concerns about the proposed MDC
Secondly, the creation of a MDC in the centre of Westminster is of concern. Such a step would be both unprecedented and unanticipated by the Localism Act. We are not aware that a MDC has ever been used in a central city area, and certainly not the most intensively developed and valuable centre of a global city. This is not what MDC’s are for. In addition, other less time consuming, costly and bureaucratic methods could achieve the same result in terms of control of traffic on Oxford Street (should that prove to be appropriate).
While it is not yet clear what powers the MDC might seek, we wish to put on record that if the MDC seeks to take planning powers from WCC, it will face opposition from many Westminster residents due to the loss of accountability that would result. We care that planning policies, planning enforcement and planning decisions remain in the hands of locally elected councillors - who represent the people most directly impacted by those decisions. The loss of that mechanism to an MDC controlled solely by you and a board representing property interests with no community representation - would be resisted. If your plans rely solely on support from property investors, visitors and tourists, this will be a significant problem going forwards.
In addition, the complex process to establish the MDC will further delay the investment that Oxford Street needs now - and which would have been delivered by WCC in 2025/2026, had you not intervened.
We would therefore ask that you re-consider your approach to this, waste no more time on the MDC and instead work with WCC and local communities on plans which can deliver for Oxford Street more quickly and with a degree of consensus.
You have said that you will be meeting with local residents as your plans develop. We look forward to meeting with you to discuss the issues involved at the earliest possible opportunity.
Yours sincerely
Tim Lord, Chair of WASF
tim.lord@thesohosociety.org.uk, 0300 302 1301
signed on behalf of the Westminster Amenity Societies listed below:-
The Residents Society of Mayfair and St James
The Queen Anne's Gate Residents' Association
The Soho Society
The Marylebone Association
North Paddington Society
Covent Garden Community Association
Fitzrovia Neighbourhood Association
The Thorney Island Society
Paddington Residents Active Concern on Transport
Belgravia Neighbourhood Forum
Belgravia Residents Association
Belgravia Society
Harrowby and District Residents' Association
The St. John's Wood Society
Seven Dials Trust
Knightsbridge Association
Cathedral Area Residents Group
Paddington Waterways and Maida Vale Society
Portland Village Association
The Hyde Park Estate Association
South East Bayswater Residents Association
Bayswater Residents Association
copy: Leader of Westminster City Council
Member of the London Assembly for West Central - James Small-Edwards
Rachel Blake MP
While we welcome the Mayor’s concerns over Oxford Street and enthusiasm for yet more spending of public money its not clear much has changed since last time pedestrianisation was considered. Local people and businesses, who are best informed on what Oxford Street is like 24 hours 365 days a year, think removing busses and taxis is a bad idea and impractical. Taking powers to ignore those views doesn’t mean the concerns they have expressed aren’t real.
The WCC scheme that is now being abandoned would have been delivered in 2025. Help for Oxford Street is needed now but the Mayor’s scheme will involve years of further delay and costs.
Why would removing busses improve access for shoppers? And where will the busses go except into congested narrow residential streets?
The Mayor has said that despite all this, he wants to pedestrianise Oxford Street and will designate a Mayoral Development Corporation to take over the area to achieve this.
Key questions are:-
The actual area that falls within the development corporation control - WCC have suggested just the Oxford Street highway itself and no buildings but it may cut a swathe through the whole area including half of Soho in order to deal with the traffic displacement. If Soho is divided into a MDC area and a WCC area for planning purposes we would be concerned. It might be hard to decide where to put the line without disrupting and dividing the communities around Oxford Street.
If the MDC takes over planning does that mean a different plan for parts of Soho? Does the Soho Neighbourhood plan still apply to the MDC area? Do we need to do a new neighbourhood plan for the bit of Soho in the MDC?
Will there still be a planning process involving public hearings and consultation and appeals in the MDC area? Excluding all local voices from planning decisions in an area where thousands of people already live is not really in step with the stated purpose of the Localism Act.
“The Localism Act contains a wide range of measures to devolve more powers to councils and neighbourhoods and give local communities greater control over local decisions like housing and planning.”
Paragraph 3 of the Explanatory Notes to the Act
How do we get involved in MDC decisions and consultations? MDC's have a poor reputation nationally for this.
Will listed buildings and other heritage assets such as conservation areas still be protected in the MDC area?
Will the Westminster City Plan continue to apply to the MDC area?
Will rules on building heights also be abandoned?
All of the key heritage and residential amenity issues in the City Plan could now be re-opened and re-litigated so that property companies can have another go with new decision makers who are not elected councillors. Is that fair? Does it “give local communities greater control over local decisions like housing and planning?”
All of these areas of central London are fully developed and owned - so the main powers of development could not be used without also using the power to compulsorily purchase properties. Is that likely?
How will the MDC be funded given that it won’t own any property or develop any itself unless it uses compulsory purchase powers? Will the MDC increase business rates in the area to pay for the MDC and the pedestrianisation. Will it levy a different council tax on residents in the MDC area?
Should other UK tax payers pay for yet further investment in London (again)?
The abandoned WCC scheme was to be paid for by the larger property companies, will the MDC be paid for by smaller businesses and tenants through higher rates? How does that help with a recovery?
The above press cutting suggests that the property companies have just reneged on the WCC deal because they saw the Mayor coming with more public money so they could avoid paying what they had already agreed to pay. How is that in the public interest?
While Oxford Street has its problems its very far from an abandoned industrial area such as the area forming the Olympic Park - while it needs work - regeneration is actually a bit of a stretch for what this legislation was intended for. As the Mayor points out:-
“Oxford Street still welcomes more than 500,000 visitors every day and generates approximately five per cent of the capital’s economic output (GVA), the equivalent of £22.75bn (in 2019)*. It is home to numerous flagship stores, including Selfridges and John Lewis, as well as being a key commercial centre.”
So it’s not really regeneration is it?
Is the MDC genuinely being used for re-development or is it merely a power grab? If the project fails it will have a massive local impact - but voting out the local authority will make no difference in 2026 (though is now quite likely given the Mayor’s spectacular no confidence vote in his Labour colleagues at WCC). It moves power to the centre and dilutes any meaningful accountability. Other visitor attraction projects did fail - like the Marble Arch Mound - so this is not a remote possibility.
We are concerned that the assumption that removing busses will increase total UK retail revenues is not a robust assumption (the mayor’s justification for this intervention is about increasing total retail spend) - but increased footfall is only helpful if the per visitor spend is maintained - its also pointless if the footfall is merely transferred from other London shopping areas. Is there any data on substitution? This analysis by WCC and NWEC suggests changes to Oxford Street will just move shoppers from Westfield to Oxford Street with no increase in tax receipts.
Many people both get to Oxford Street and negotiate its length on a bus - so some people that currently spend on Oxford Street will not bother.
Many Westminster residents use buses that cross London through Oxford Street - they don’t want and some aren’t able to use the tube. Is it fair to remove their access to Oxford Street and to other parts of London?
Equalities impact seems to be an issue with the elderly and disabled often needing to use buses and taxis in preference to the tube or walking with heavy shopping. Will this scheme have a disproportionate impact on the elderly and those with restricted mobility? Is that fair?
The stated intervention - removal of busses and taxis - only deals with one issue that Oxford Street faces (overcrowding in part of the afternoon). Its not the only problem - a more complete list would include:-
the decline of high street retail due to home delivery
increased competition from other (covered and traffic free) shopping areas such as Westfield and Battersea
possibly just too much land devoted to one use (retail) in London - the use is declining
VAT treatment for visitors’ purchases
the drop is the value and interest of the retail offer itself on Oxford Street - the loss of independent and unique businesses
shops in high footfall areas being used for money laundering
Does the mayor have proposed solutions to these problems as well? Why does the bus removal impact these problems?
We still don’t know where the busses and taxis will go. The previous 2018 plans were abandoned because that issue could not be solved. What has actually changed that means it can be solved this time round?
One solution to one issue would be to have a rates adjustment for businesses that are independent, unique and have some heritage value and actually attract visitors - this is something we really want WCC to do in Soho for Maison Bertaux and Camisa for example … it does not require the creation of a MDC.
Oxford Street is a place that requires its history and function for multiple users to be respected - putting a visitor attraction for tourists above all else is not a balanced response to the area - is it likely to be a sustainable change which respects the street’s history and its multiple uses and users?
We aren’t so sure.