Oxford Street: Westminster amenity groups and local Tories criticise Mayor of London's pedestrianisation plan

Sadiq Khan's proposed scheme has met with disapproval from influential residents' organisations as well as cross-party opposition

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With Labour-run Westminster Council having already published a list of ten “key concerns” about his Oxford Street pedestrianisation plan, Sadiq Khan now finds an array of Westminster’s influential amenity groups ranged against him, along with local Conservatives.

In a letter to the Mayor, the Westminster Amenity Societies Forum, whose members include the Marylebone Association, the Soho Society and the Residents’ Society of Mayfair and St James, warns that any “removal of buses and taxis from part of Oxford Street will, once again, be unsupported by the local community and businesses, and prove impractical” – a reference to the collapse in 2018 of the previous pedestrianisation scheme supported by Khan and by the Tory-run Westminster of the time until the latter backed out in the face of opposition just before the local elections.

The letter also questions whether the intended creation of a Mayoral Development Corporation (MDC), which would potentially take control of the street’s future out of the hands of local politicians and place it in those of the Mayor, would be an appropriate use of the power, describing such a step as “unprecedented and unanticipated by the Localism Act”, the 2011 legislation that created MDCs.

More opposition was expressed on Wednesday, the same day the letter was sent, at a full meeting of Westminster Council, where West End ward Tory councillor Tim Barnes (pictured, standing) described Khan’s plan as a “crackpot scheme” and sought guarantees from Geoff Barraclough, cabinet member for planning and economic development, that the Labour administration would not be contributing funds to the Mayor’s project or “endorse” the council’s role as the area’s licensing authority “being moved over to the MDC”.

Barraclough said there has been “no indication” that the Mayor will be asking for money from Westminster Council and assured Barnes that the authority has in any case “no intention” of contributing financially to the scheme, adding that funds previously set aside for its own Oxford Street improvement programme will now be spent “somewhere else”.

He also confirmed that Westminster will want to “retain licensing”, which there have been rumours Mayor Khan has explored appropriating powers over. These were swiftly denied by City Hall when asked about them by OnLondon in September. Some operators in the West End’s hospitality sector regard the approach to licensing of the Labour administration, which is mindful of the concerns of residents, as too restrictive.

Earlier in the meeting, council leader Adam Hug told Conservative group leader Paul Swaddle that as yet “there has not been a formal response” from the Mayor to the council’s concerns about the scheme, but that he had spoken to Khan soon after the announcement and discussions with City Hall “at officer and political level” have been ongoing. Issues include the size and necessity of the MDC, how significant traffic increases on nearby residential streets could be avoided, and how the views of residents would be represented.

London MDCs currently exist for the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and its surroundings and for the Old Oak and Park Royal site in outer north west London, two large regeneration projects in areas with scope for transformative redevelopment. In their letter, the amenities societies say they are “not aware that a MDC has ever been used in a central city area, and certainly not in the most intensively developed and valuable centre of a global city. This in not what MDCs are for”.

However, the Act states that the Mayor “may designate an area of land in Greater London as a mayoral development area” as long as he or she “considers that designation of the area is expedient for furthering any one or more of the Greater London Authority’s principal purposes”.

An exhaustive consultation process must be completed before the Secretary of State, currently Angela Rayner, establishes the corporation. The Mayor can make the MDC the planning authority for the area within its boundary, which, as OnLondon has reported, City Hall has been considering encompassing streets running parallel to Oxford Street, Marble Arch to its immediate west, parts oof Soho and areas of Camden at its eastern end.