FOI - Oxford street [Oct 2024]

Your request 

Please treat this as a request under the Freedom of Information Act to provide:-

1. the economic analysis and modelling behind the Mayor’s decision
2. specifically does that analysis that show that removal of busses and taxis from Oxford Street will increase the UK’s total tax revenue as a result of an increase in total retailsales in London? By how much?
3. does that analysis exclude substitutional effects such as footfall and transactions simply being transferred from other shopping areas such as Westfield?
4. What proportion of the increased sale in Oxford Street in your plan is a net increase in total UK sales and what is just transferred from other areas?
5. please share any modelling you have on increased footfall, increased spend, over time as a result of removing busses and taxis from the street
6. have you modelled reduced footfall in Westfield and Oxford Street’s other competitors?
7. what access measures do you plan to put in place for the disabled, emergency, service and maintenance vehicles to shops and offices on Oxford Street - will there by timed access?
8. What is the expected cost of the proposed pedestrianisation?
9. What volume of CO2 do you anticipate will be released by the proposed works?
10. What plans have you to minimises disruption and traffic delays and increased emissions if the busses and taxis are moved to other busier streets - Wigmore Street for example?
11. Have you completed an equalities assessment for the pedestrianisation? Please provide it if so.
12. What hours will apply to the new night time economy activity on Oxford Street? Is the terminal hour to be 11pm or later? If later which hour?
13. Have you read the cumulative impact assessment prepared by Westminster City Council in December 2023? - would the mayoral development corporation take over control oflicensing decisions in the Oxford Street area? How would you meet the licensing objectives given what the CIA has identified in the West End CIA? Do you think there is a risk that increasing NTE activity on Oxford Street will increase crime and nuisance at a time when it has proven difficult to hire enough police officers?
14. Have you made any estimate of the cost of crime that might increase with an increase in the night time economy activity on Oxford Street?
15. Are you planning to install a monitored CCTV system for Oxford Street and at what cost?
16. have you made plans for increased policing in the area to reflect the increase in activity in the area? If so what is the cost of that?
17. Why do you think you will be able to hire enough officers for this activity?
18. What plans have you made for safe dispersal from the area at night?
19. Have you estimated the costs to the NHS of the cost of treating victims of crime as a result of the increased night time activity? If so please provide.
20. What is your estimate of total spend from each visitor to Oxford Street? over time and in to the future, will that change with pedestrianisation?
21. How many additional jobs do you anticipate the Oxford Street scheme will create in retail? the NTE? construction?
22. How much of the additional revenue will be from substituted online sales?
23. How much of the costs of the scheme will be recovered from the property companies on the street? Or is it all public money?
24. Do you plan for the street to be used for tables and chairs for licensed premises or do you plan to suspend the legislation on that? If not what room will be left for pedestrians in meters?
25. Have you got evidence that there is unmet demand for an additional large shopping area in London - for example are the areas in Battersea and Westfield and elsewhere at capacity or below capacity?
26. Do you have evidence that tourists will now choose London over other destinations because of the removal of busses/ taxis from Oxford Street? If so please provide.
27. what measures will the Mayor take to close “Candy Stores” if any?
28. does the mayor anticipate making the retail offering on Oxford Street more appealing by direct intervention in the market? if so how?
29. what modelling do you have on existing rent levels for commercial property on Oxford Street and how it might be impacted by this decision? please provide.
30. how many meetings the mayor’s office had with NWEC in the last 2 years? please provide dates and minutes of those meetings.
31. does the mayor’s office have an estimate of how this decision will increase rents and values on Oxford Street? please provide.
32. has the mayor considered less invasive strategies for dealing with over crowding by, for example, encouraging shoppers to visit through out the day not just mid afternoon?

Our response

The Mayor has set out his vision to transform Oxford Street, including turning the road into a traffic-free pedestrianised avenue, creating a beautiful public space where business and people can thrive. Proposals for the transformation of Oxford Street are at an early stage and no decisions have yet been taken on the matters referred to in your request. Detailed assessments will be carried out as proposals for the scheme develop, with impact assessments and modelling undertaken as part of scheme design. As such, at present there is no detailed scheme proposal so the GLA does not hold recorded information (assessments etc) that will respond to the majority of the parts of your request.

I can inform you that the following meetings that fall within the scope of your request have taken place:

• 14 March 2023 - Lucinda Turner met Dee Corsi at MIPIM
• 10 July 2024 - Howard Dawber, Deputy Mayor for Business and Growth joined a visit to the West End organised by NWEC.
• 16 September 2024 – Richard Watts, Deputy Chief of Staff, Will Norman, London’s Walking and Cycling Commissioner and Howard Dawber, Deputy Mayor for Business and Growth met with NWEC board.

We also hold a Preliminary Forecast of Potential Tax Impacts (see attached)