The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has given formal approval for the permanent pedestrianisation of a key section of Oxford Street, confirming plans to close the stretch between Orchard Street and Great Portland Street to private vehicles, buses, taxis, private hire vehicles, cycles, scooters and pedicabs.
The implementation is scheduled to begin this September, with the closure followed by further works designed to transform the street into what Khan has described as “a world-leading urban space for shopping.”
A second round of public consultation, which drew 2,716 responses providing general support for the scheme, preceded the final decision.
The project has been decades in the making — Ken Livingstone, London’s first mayor, floated the idea of pedestrianising Oxford Street more than 20 years ago, and it remained a recurring aspiration across multiple mayoralties before the current administration finally progressed it to this point. Khan’s decision to proceed makes it a potentially defining piece of urban policy for his tenure, and the timing — coming in the final phase of his mayoralty — gives the announcement a legacy quality that is hard to miss.
The practical changes will affect some of London’s most frequent public transport users as well as the millions of shoppers who visit the area annually.
Buses that currently run along Oxford Street will be rerouted along Wigmore Street and Henrietta Place, with bus stops, taxi ranks and drop-off points relocated as close to the pedestrianised zone as possible without sitting on Oxford Street itself. The closure will apply to the section between Selfridges and the IKEA store — the densest and most congested stretch of the street — though the broader aspiration, as expressed by supporters of the scheme, is that further phases could eventually extend pedestrianisation along a greater portion of the road’s entire length.
The scheme represents a significant piece of transport and public realm planning even beyond its symbolic significance. Oxford Street already operates with restrictions between 7am and 7pm Monday through Saturday, meaning some version of reduced traffic is familiar to regular visitors.
The permanent and comprehensive version being implemented this September goes considerably further, fundamentally altering the street’s character and removing the presence of vehicles that has defined its atmosphere — and contributed to its pollution and noise levels — for generations.
Critics of the proposal have pointed to potential disruption for bus users, particularly those travelling east-west across central London for whom Oxford Street routes represent key connections.
The rerouting along Wigmore Street and Henrietta Place will extend journey times for some passengers, and the trade-off between a cleaner, more pleasant high street and reliable public transport access is not one that resolves itself cleanly in favour of either outcome. TfL is expected to publish detailed information about replacement routes and affected services ahead of September’s implementation.
The broader context for this decision is one in which London is actively competing with other European capitals for the attention of International visitors and retail investment. Paris’s Champs-Élysées and Barcelona’s Las Ramblas represent the kind of pedestrianised boulevard experience that central London has long lacked on its primary retail corridor, and the commercial logic of creating a comparable environment on Oxford Street is well established in the urbanist literature. Whether the execution matches the ambition will depend on how well the supporting works — wider crossings, better street furniture, improved lighting and activation of the public realm — follow the initial traffic closure.