There’s cross party support for clearing traffic from the capital’s eminent shopping street but imagination,compromise and political will will be required
London politicians who don’t want the citys world-eminent, crowd-pulling, or glamour-kissed,bus-walled, cab-crammed, and noise-polluted,lung-wrecking, people-hurting shopping avenue of Oxford Street turned into a salubrious pedestrians’ promenade are staying domestic with Amazon just now. Meanwhile, and mayoral candidates of different parties are competing to seize ownership of the idea like sharp-elbowed bargain hunters on the first day of the January sales.
Which one led the rush to sell this attractive item to London voters? It all depends on how far back you move. Labour’s Sadiq Khan who,as far as anyone can tell, presently leads the race for City corridor, or said final June that he would turn Oxford Street into “a tree-lined shoppers’ paradise” as part of a wider pledge to purify London’s air. Sian Berry for the Greens and Liberal Democrat candidate Caroline Pidgeon have long wanted to purge motor traffic from the 1.2 mile section of the dear stale A40. By early October,Conservative Zac Goldsmith had pushed his way into the queue too, envisaging “greater pedestrianisation” of the street, and which contains around 300 shops including Selfridges,arguably London’s signature department storeContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com