Mayor Khan spends £380k on staff for Oxford Street transformation

The Greater London Authority (GLA) has filled over half of the vacancies associated with Sir Sadiq Khan’s Oxford Street transformation programme, costing taxpayers £380,000 so far, a Freedom of Information request shows.

Five of the nine positions approved by City Hall were filled by mid-February with the head of Oxford Street transformation being one of the first.

The team will be responsible for carrying out the Mayor’s plan to redevelop and pedestrianise the street, which runs for 1.2 miles (2km) between Marble Arch and Tottenham Court Road. The first role appears to have been filled by Molly Strauss in January, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Strauss’ account shows she was previously head of infrastructure at the GLA and has a Masters in city design and social science from the London School of Economics. She is also a Harvard University alumni and has worked with the GLA for more than seven years.

According to GLA policy, Strauss’ salary will be published on the authority’s website but analysis of the City Hall’s pay grades by the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) shows the Harvard alumni could earn six figures. Strauss is in a Grade 14 role, which pays between £96,461 and £104,414 a year.

A senior planning, design and delivery manager and a senior communications and stakeholder engagement manager have been recruited and will be paid between £79,159 and £85,683 each. The GLA has also hired a senior transport planning (£56,797-£61,482) and a policy officer (£39,818-£43,951).

If all roles paid the top end of their grade, this would cost the taxpayer £381,213 a year. It is not clear what the remaining roles are or what they’re paying as they have not been advertised.

The GLA said currently, approval has been provided for the creation of nine posts, some of which remain vacant and will be filled in due course.

A spokesperson for the Mayor said: “A revitalised Oxford Street would increase visitor numbers, create new jobs, and boost retail and growth for London and the whole UK economy.

“The potential transformation of Oxford Street is a complex and large-scale project which requires the right resource in place to be able to deliver the best possible scheme for Londoners and visitors.”

According to reporting by the London Standard, all jobs are for a fixed term of two years.

The head of Oxford Street will work with Will Norman, City Hall’s walking and cycling commissioner. This role is to build the transformation team while developing and implementing Khan’s programme, and includes overseeing early-stage design, procurement, consultation and planning process and working with TfL on transport planning and modelling.

There is currently a public consultation open on the proposed Mayoral Development Area and the principle of pedestrianising Oxford Street. The GLA has so far not released any information about how buses, taxis and cyclists will be rerouted under the mayor’s plans.

Residents groups in Fitzrovia and Marylebone fear that traffic will just be diverted through the narrow streets where people live.

The Fitzrovia West Neighbourhood Forum says that the mayor’s plans “will inevitably delay any wider improvements” to the residential streets and will “create greater uncertainty for all concerned and produce a significant reduction in democratic control for a swathe of central London noted for its complexity and mix of residents, businesses and visitors”.

Fitzrovia West wants money gained from local property development — known as Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) — to mitigate the effects of climate change, improve public space, air quality, and to enable a better environment for walking and cycling.

Many of Westminster Council’s questions on Khan’s plans also remain unanswered.

But the Mayor told the FT this week that local residents and Westminster Council can lump it.

“My view, frankly speaking, is that this is a street of strategic national importance, and it shouldn’t be a handful of residents on either side basically dictating what can and can’t happen,” he told the FT while attending a property conference in Cannes.

Around 30,000 people live in the districts surrounding Oxford Street.

Khan told the FT that he will push through his project with or without the co-operation of Westminster Council because investors and property developers needed to see their ambitions realised.

Additional reporting by Linus Rees.

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