Oxford Street: good planning should deliver local and national benefits

The continuing penchant for our administrations to make plans and only then consult seems to be continuing with the “leaked” map of the proposed Oxford Street Mayoral Development Area.  

It is clearly led by two dynamics. Number one being the perceived need to re-route traffic around the entire length of Oxford Street; and number two being to open up the potential for new development sites including Marble Arch and the Tottenham Court Road and Bloomsbury environs.  

If the Mayor bothers to consult, or even bothers to review Westminster City Council’s previous consultations, he will discover that we in Fitzrovia have been pressing the council for some time to consider the wider area in order to accommodate and support increased residential amenity at the same time as Oxford Street is improved. For example, at present WCC’s central activities zoning precludes local shopping areas like Great Titchfield Street having any local planning protection at all.

The Fitzrovia West Neighbourhood Forum has held several presentations explaining how other cities are constructing planning policy to take account of the complete neighbourhood. These ideas have receive much local support.  

I for one would welcome a more holistic neighbourhood approach to the new designs. Fitzrovia, Bloomsbury, Soho, Mayfair and Marylebone all possess a flourishing independent business community and increasingly large residential numbers.  

We can not simply look at the traffic problem. We must consider housing, public health, local employment, and environmental improvement as well.

Good planning strategies should be able to deliver local and national benefits of development. 

No good planning will ever come from strategising behind closed doors, using selective discussions with transport engineers, developers and organisations like the New West End Company.  

It is residents and local businesses who really know the granular detail of the area. W1, the very centre of London, should expect the very best. Selective consultation is the very worst. Excluding us is like trying to diagnose illness in a patient who is gagged and bound.