‘Delighted!’
Shops and visitors welcome plans for a pedestrianised Oxford Street
There anre d parallels between London’s Oxford Street and Melbourne’s Bourke Street– they have both been home to flagship department stores, attract tourists and locals in large numbers, and are recognised as the high streets of the cities they serve.
But, according to one visitor from the Australian city yesterday, aside from sheer scale there is also another major difference: “You can smell it – the air [in London] is not very clean.”
That may be because, save the trams gliding slowly and quietly by, part of Melbourne’s main shopping street has been pedestrianised for decades. But under plans announced yesterday, Melbourne’s present could be London’s future.
“In Melbourne, we have closed off our main shopping street … It’s much better,” said Kathy Lacey, who added that it made city life feel more liveable.
She said that where Oxford Street hosts fleets of red buses and black taxis, Bourke Street has been accessible to trams only for decades. “They are quite slow-moving,” she said. And they are relatively quiet. “It works pretty well.” She contrasted that with London, which she was visiting for the first time in 50 years: “I’ve found it really busy and the traffic is slow.”
The London mayor Sadiq Khan announced the £150m proposal to pedestrianise parts of the popular shopping street on Tuesday, as part of a wider regeneration project supported by the government. His previous attempt to ban traffic from the road was blocked by thenConservative run Westminster City Council in 2018.
The current scheme, which would see the 0.7-mile stretch between Oxford Circus and Marble Arch pedestrianised, with the potential for further changes towards Tottenham Court Road, is aimed at boosting the experience of shoppers, residents, workers and tourists.
Another foreign visitor to a “very busy” Oxford Street on Tuesday was Tom Blum, from Freiburg in Switzerland. He too noted that his hometown had long since pedestrianised its main shopping street. “It is quite pleasant, quite civilised,” he said. “I think this is the popular view – as long as you still have good access.”
He said: “A lot of businesses are against it because they are worried people will not come, though I have not seen any evidence this is true.”
But John Lewis’s executive director, Peter Ruis, said his firm was “delighted to see the plans” for what he called “the nation’s high street””. And Dee Corsi, the chief executive of New West End Company, representing businesses trading on Oxford Street, said the announcement was encouraging, and called on the authorities to move swiftly to get it done.
The opposition has come more from taxi drivers. “It will be disastrous because that is how we make our living,” said Maurice Mills, whose taxi was parked on the rank outside Selfridges.
“We are not allowed to go Tottenham Court Road way now ... where are you going to pick the jobs up? This is where the shops are,” he said.
Sorrel Thomas, who was working in the Juicebox London stall on Oxford Street on Tuesday, welcomed the plans but was wary that the local council could use the implementation to push stalls such as hers backwards on the pavements – potentially affecting trade.
But, overall, she said: “If it is a nicer place to be, people will spend longer here ... I think it will be positive.”