Latest design shows how Oxford Street could look if pedestrianisation is given the go-ahead

DING! Ding! It’s seconds out and round three in the latest Oxford Street pedestrianisation political punch-up.

In the red corner, com­ing out of Tooting, the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan. And in the other red corner, Westminster Council and its leader Adam “the Incredible” Hug, who was compared to the all-smashing green-skinned Incredible Hulk by a Labour colleague in the council chamber on Wednesday.

Mr Khan on Friday announced a fresh consul­tation on his plans to partially ban traffic on the world-famous shop­ping street while slam­ming the council for standing in his way. He criticised the council for “failing” Oxford Street over a number of years, while also saying he was “pleased the council has come round to my way of thinking” and was no longer an “obstacle to progress”.

The Labour-run council had already spent £22million on its own grand plan to pedestrianise Oxford Street, before the Mayor announced he was unveiling a new scheme that would be run by an independent Management Development Corporation (MDC). The Mayor’s comments this week were described as a “dramatic attack” on the Labour-run Westminster Council by the Marylebone Association.

And they were also leapt upon at Wednes­day’s full council meeting by Cllr Paul Swaddle, who described the council’s relationship with Mr Khan as “fractured”.

He told the meeting: “The leader of the council has failed to forge a productive relationship with the Mayor, who clearly doesn’t take him or his administration seriously.” The Conservatives’ motion to the meeting to “bill the mayor” for lost funding from the council’s scrapped Oxford Street scheme was rejected by Labour.

Council leader Adam Hug. Below: as ‘the Incredible’ Hug

And the council’s economic develop­ment chief, Cllr Geoff Barraclough, rushed to defend Cllr Hug, insisting he was no walk-over.

Cllr Barraclough said: “We don’t think pedestrianisation is the right solution. Even if we did, we don’t think this is the right way of delivering it. But we are not the decision makers, the Mayor is in charge. The public expects us to act like grown-ups. We got stuck into the negotiations, we did not flounce out. They were sometimes robust negotiations. You think he’s a mild-mannered chap. But you don’t want to see the leader when he’s angry.”

This was a nod to Dr Bruce Banner’s famous line in the Marvel comic book series: “You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”

Dr Bruce Banner has the capacity to transform into a green alter-ego with limitless strength, possessed by uncontrol­lable bouts of rage.

Following the Mayor’s relatively low-profile launch on Friday, the Association said in a statement to its members: “If this is not stopped, Wigmore Street, Mortimer Street, indeed Marylebone and Fitzrovia, will take all of the traffic banned from Oxford Street, the buses and taxis, maybe cyclists too, and certainly the vans and lorries which service the Oxford Street stores. It is vindictive, it is wrong – but it’s coming our way.”

It added: “If the Mayor carries on helping like this, Labour may well find themselves handing the council back to the Conservatives next year.”

The Soho Society said the Mayor’s project “isn’t democratic”, adding: “We all love a drink, but this may have a pretty catas­trophic impact on the social housing units in North Mayfair through crime and noise as has happened in some parts of Soho.”

The MDC will have three councillors sitting on a 12-person board that is appointed by the Mayor.

Mayor wants to create ‘world-class’ new space

Sadiq Khan is seeking to introduce a ‘phased’ plan for a traffic-free Oxford Street

SADIQ Khan’s plans to transform Oxford Street include a raft of changes alongside the well-known pedestrianisation, with new cycle routes and a “world-class” public space, writes Adrian Zorzut LDRS.

Mr Khan wants to introduce a “phased pedestrianisation” of Oxford Street, with a first phase between Oxford Circus and Orchard Street.

He said: “Why? Because I think a big bang won’t work. We don’t want to inconvenience residents. We don’t want to cause problems for buses.”

Plans for Oxford Street remain vague at the present time, but Mr Khan said: “We will be, later on, working on plans for drop-off points for black taxis for those who are disabled, where we can have cycle bays for those who want to come by bike. For those who want to carry on cycling, you won’t be able to cycle through the pedestrianised bit but you’ll have routes to cycle around.”

The Mayor believes the project can be funded from “philanthropic sources” alongside public and private sector contributions.

City Hall predicts that on average, pedestrianisation could be expected to raise an additional £30m-£40m in VAT receipts, while raising an extra £10m-£20m in business rates. Mr Khan has ruled out repaying Westminster City Council the £22m it spent on its own transformation programme, which was cancelled late last year.

A long road…

IN November 2017, Mr Khan and then Conservative deputy council leader Robert Davis united behind the “Better Oxford Street” that pledged to make the famous shopping street traffic-free by Christmas 2018.

But a raft of candidates for the council elections were fielded by the Campaign Against Pedestrianisation of Oxford Street single-issue party, with potentially devastating consequences for the Tories in what were at the time considered safe wards.

One of the council’s longest-serving Conservative councillors, Glenys Roberts, turned her back on the Tories and urged her followers to support the independents, arguing her party had “lost its way at all levels”.

There was panic in the Tory ranks and with weeks to go before the count, the outgoing cabinet councillor Danny Astaire told a full council meeting that officers had stopped working on design work with the Mayor of London and that the council now opposed the plan. The council then began drawing up its own £150million scheme to modernise the famous shopping district – plans that have now been scrapped.