I’m not being funny, but I feel like this Oxford Street pedestrianisation is a bit of a farce. In theory, it could be something to get excited about but there’s so many reasons why it runs the risk of just being another failed project that the taxpayer is going to pick up the bill for.
Do I need to remind anyone of that ridiculous Marble Arch Mound? That was budgeted at £2 million, ended up costing £6 million and was made out of scaffolding. Following six months of ridicule it was taken down and that’s a lot of money that could have been used on social projects.
Onto the problems with pedestrianising that side of Oxford Street. For starters, Park Lane and the area around Marble Arch is one of the most expensive in the world, in one of the richest councils in the country and yet there’s no end in sight for all the homeless people. They have been there for years now and nothing is being done about it. This Bosnian majority community that’s been calling the patch of grass opposite the Arch home has no intention of leaving but then again is the council doing anything to stop this? Not to mention, the general homelessness crisis we’re facing. The money spent on that mound alone could have built 20 council flats or funded a vital homelessness programme.
Now I live in Westminster, I know how privileged we are. We get our rubbish picked up five times a day. Anything broken is duly fixed. Nothing is lacking for residents of this council and yet they’ve allowed for this problem to go on for so long. They also allow for daylight muggings and shop robbery to thrive. The entire area sees theft rates far higher than the national average and while I understand that it will naturally be a bigger target, how come more isn’t being done? Do you really think that stopping cars going down Oxford Street is going to make things better? Sadiq doesn’t even want bicycles to be allowed in the pedestrian areas.
We already know that London is impossible to get around
Not only is that a terrible idea (I thought we wanted more people on bikes and fewer people on roads), but how the hell is that going to be policed? Or is that just it? Is it going to be policed? In which case, it would yet again be a case of distributing funding to the wrong “issue”. There are a lot of unanswered questions here and luckily Westminster council is asking them. They were apparently as surprised by the Mayor of London’s announcement last week as we were, seeing as they’d already set aside £95 million to improve the area while still maintaining one of London’s most vital bus, taxi and bike lanes.
Look, at the moment Oxford Street is filled with those candy and tourist trap merch shops anyway, so it’s barely attracting the shopper back into stores. I spoke about this a long while back and haven’t seen a single improvement. If landlords don’t drop their obscene rental rates and encourage exciting brands back in, then you can forget about a car free Oxford Street becoming a shopping mecca once again. It’s all fine to say that you want to do something but if this isn’t backed by real efforts to attract shoppers into central London once again then it’s just yet another vanity project that we could do without spend a s***load of money on.
We already know that London is impossible to get around, with road works on every corner. I know one particular spot that’s been closed off for months and have yet to see anyone actually working on it, and I just know this is happening everywhere. So on top of this how are we going to find a way to divert all the Oxford Street traffic without making the city even more frustrating and painful to get around?
It’s funny... I was thinking last week that we’ve pretty much not heard from the Mayor of London since the election. We’ve not seen any major actions to improve our city since either. Then all of a sudden we get the announcement that he’s pushing for this farce again. Like I said at the start of this article — with real ideas that can be implemented effectively, it could be good for the area. But you’re not allowed to just come out swinging, making these bold, vague announcements and expect any of us to get behind it. We need more. London deserves more.
Track of the Week: Impress Me — Archie Hamilton feat Tenesha the Wordsmith
