Can Sadiq Khan save Oxford Street?

Oxford Street’s spiralling tawdriness is a miserable advert for London. The ‘candy’ stores and tourist tat ‘luggage’ emporiums, the gang fights and phone snatchers are an embarrassment: tourists who are told that London is the greatest city on earth must struggle to reconcile that promise with the reality of the city’s main shopping street. Oxford Street has been on its uppers for as long as I can remember and I’ve been living nearby for over 20 years. Is it any wonder despondent locals like me steer well clear?

But all that might be about to change if London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s plan to pedestrianise the capital’s benighted thoroughfare gets the go ahead. Yup, the man who failed to crack down on London’s descent into knife-ridden lawlessness has come over all European with his £150 million dream to transform ‘London’s high street’ into a Barcelona-style Las Ramblas. His previous attempt to ban traffic was blocked by the then-Conservative run Westminster city council in 2018.