00:00I'm on Oxford Street, the nation's most famous shopping street.
00:04Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, has announced that he wants to pedestrianise the street
00:09to get rid of the buses, get rid of the taxis, even get rid of the cyclists
00:13and hand over the roads to pedestrians.
00:16We've got shops that are empty. We've got proliferation of US candy stores.
00:22The flagship stores that I remember from Topshop and other stores are no longer here.
00:29House of Fraser is no longer here.
00:31Debenhams, my old shop I used to work in, is no longer here.
00:34And so it's no surprise that people are using online shopping.
00:38It's no surprise people are going to out-of-town centres, shopping centres.
00:42It's no surprise that flagship stores that haven't left are thinking about their future in Oxford Street.
00:46That can't be right. What you want to do is have a street that's vibrant,
00:49where if you go into Shop 1, you don't get what you want.
00:52You go to Shop 2, or you go and browse in Shop 3 and Shop 4.
00:56And that means the shops benefit, the restaurants benefit, the community benefits,
01:00but also our city and country benefits because of gross value added and tax receipts.
01:05I think for tourists, for anyone coming to London, it doesn't feel like bits of waste
01:09where necessarily people want to come, bring back the sort of stores that are going to bring people in.
01:15Then it becomes back to being a proper shopping destination.
01:18I need buses to get around.
01:21So to get from one end of Oxford Street to the other, how would I do it?
01:26You know, taxis, buses, they're fundamental to London and getting around London.
01:33So if you closed off Oxford Street, pedestrianised it totally,
01:40how would you get from one end to the other?
01:43Why are these plans so controversial?
01:45Well, the fact is that there are many thousands of residents who live either side of Oxford Street,
01:50either in Mayfair or Soho to the south, or Fitzrovia or Marleybourne to the north.
01:55And they are represented by Westminster councillors.
01:58Many of these councillors, even though they're in the Labour Party, like Sadiq,
02:02look after the residents' interests first.
02:04And these residents do not want buses diverted off Oxford Street and driving down their residential area.
02:11The other issue is actually the sheer number of people who come here
02:15and also getting all the businesses to agree on a master plan.
02:19I think it's really important to invest in streets like this,
02:23to invest in communities like this, but also to invest in Oxford Street.
02:27This used to be known as our nation's high street.
02:31How many people watching this or reading this would say to a friend coming to London,
02:36go to Oxford Street to shop?
02:37But it shouldn't be just on the shoulders of John Lewis and Selfridges.
02:40The responsibility of reinvigorating Oxford Street,
02:44there's got to be a role surely for the mayor and the government
02:47to support this really important part of our economy.
02:50Look, I'm going to transform this street.
02:52I want it to be greener and safer and more hospitable to visitors,
02:57to tourists, to residents, to businesses.
03:00When you look at the vacancy rates across London, roughly speaking,
03:04the vacancy rate in shops across London is about 10%.
03:08Oxford Street, 14%. Why is that?
03:10And that's why it's really important to recognise we're going to get growth
03:14by working with the government, by investing in this area.
03:17We're going to have a mayoral development corporation.
03:19We'll set out what the area is.
03:21That will mean we can have at least part of Oxford Street pedestrianised.
03:25That will lead to increased footfall, shops doing better,
03:28businesses doing better, attracting more businesses, fewer vacancies.
03:32Now, what will this involve?
03:33Well, initially in the first stage, it would involve the pedestrianisation
03:37of the section between Oxford Circus and Selfridges.
03:41This is an old plan that came out first in 2017
03:44that the mayor wants to bring back to life.
03:46After that, we simply don't know.
03:48The mayor hasn't announced how much money he would spend,
03:51exactly what else would happen.
03:53What's likely, though, is that he would expect businesses to contribute
03:56to this scheme, and the wider aim is to attract shoppers
04:00and big-name shops back to Oxford Street to put it on a par
04:04with the likes of Las Ramblas in Barcelona and the Champs-Élysées in Paris.
04:09Can he achieve it?
04:10Well, it's one heck of a task, but Mr Kan has made clear
04:13that he believes the status quo is not an option,
04:16so don't expect change quickly, but this could be something
04:19that could happen over the next few years if he gets his way.
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