To think, get rid of the driving restrictions, make parking easier and watch Oxford Street flourish 🤷‍♀️

@mumofoneAlonebutokay Oxford Street isn't really up-market though? Is it?
Was it ever?
Obviously Selfridges was aimed at the more "well off" crowd.
As a child (80s) I remember going there and going to C+A and BHS.
As a teen (90s) I went there for places like Top Shop.
In my 20s (00s) it was for HMV and Borders Bookshop.

Everybody can park for free on Sundays and after 6pm. The shops are open until late.

Blue badge holders get 1 hour free in paid for bays and there are some free 4 hour blue badge bays.

https://www.westminster.gov.uk/parking/disabled-parking/where-you-can-park-disabled-badge

I agree that central London needs more free disabled parking given how inaccessible the tube is for people with disabilities, especially wheelchair users. It does not need more car parks and traffic though. A 15 minute off peak bus journey can take over an hour at peak times on Park Lane.

@bombastix well considering how much tourists (possibly including those from Dubai) seem to buy in Primark (hint.... it's LOADS) they'd probably go wild in a big B+M.
Perhaps it could move into the empty House of Fraser and call itself by it's original name.
The fancy new department store of Billington and Maymen will be a huge success.

No because she can't park

I love the idea of people coming from Dubai to shop on the Oxford St B+M.

Better yet, drive there. Selfridges and Uniqlo are the only reasons to go. London shopping is no longer interesting in the centre

Yes, I went to Oxford Street for the first time two years ago and was really disappointed by the clothing on display or even in the back store room. There were hardly any options, all spaced out in an arty fashion. It was more like the shop was an advert for the brand than a, y'know, shop.

My local high street shops have much less aesthetic appeal but at least they have stock.

There is underground parking at Marble Arch - it isn’t only the volume of traffic which
has ruined Oxford Street and its environs of Regent Street, Bond Street, Piccadilly.

These shopping streets have had their day, existing in a collective memory, still sold
to foreign visitors as a destination shopping experience, the majority of shoppers

This is the evolution of shopping, from the great Department Stores, of which there were many, on days we would walk Oxford Street shopping for shoes, for instance,
it was our High Street, a bus ride away.

Oxford Street is currently in the process of imploding.
You are wasting energy and rhetoric OP, the Nation’s High Street is doomed.

IKEA is moving in to the old Top Shop.
Obviously a smaller branch than the usual ones.
I don't know if it's going to just sell the small bits and bobs and big furniture will be just for display and you have to order it.
It will be interesting to see.
Why not a retailer like B+M though?
They sell useful household things. I went today and bought a kitchen draining board and a loo brush. Where else could I get those on Oxford Street? Do Selfridges or John Lewis sell them?
(or if they do - are they sensible prices?)
But seriously....if Oxford Street had a big branch of The Works, a big Poundland, Hobbycraft and B+M or Homebargins I'd go there considerably more often.

Oxford street is the blueprint - retail should be prioritised and people encouraged to shop.

Why though? What’s so special about Oxford Street? Even forgetting the rest of the country, what even makes is so important for London that we spend public money in an attempt to get people to spend money in those particular businesses?

I don’t get it. It’s just a street with shops. London has so many better places to go, even just for shopping (if that’s your idea of a day out)

This is quite the most incoherent and bonkers thing I've read in a while.

I am a lifelong Londoner. I own 2 cars. Hell will freeze over before I drive to Oxford St.

If i want multiples I'll go to Brent Cross, Westfield or maybe even Kensington High St. Mostly bus or train unless I've got something big to carry.

If i fancy a mooch, there's Muswell Hill, Hampstead, King's Cross, Wimbledon, Camden, Marylebone, Borough Market, Covent Garden... Always by public transport.

Where are these places that you plan for me to "park for cheap" and then get a bus?? Anywhere outside the Circle Line is too far away. Anywhere inside the Circle Line is full. Really, really full. Buildings above the ground, intersecting tube lines below it.

Bonkers.

I used to shop in Oxford Street 30.years ago (would never have chosen to drive in central London, though - the tube is just faster and easier).

But 30 years ago the shops were better, plus there wasn't the online competition. If you wanted to see loads and loads of things and choose something new, then nowhere had more stuff than Oxford Street - just giant emporiums with lots of choice. Not necessarily quirky and individual, but it really ticked the "massive shopping experience" box that few other places could match.

Now it's got loads of shitty money-laundering sweetshops and tourist tat. Interspersed with some huge surviving shops, yes, but these are mostly precisely the kind of generic mainstream shops which are being superseded by their online versions. It's a double whammy of crapness.

Are you aware what is under the ground on Oxford Street, OP?

The Underground.

Londoners aren't fussed about driving to Oxford St. They do their shopping online.

The reason it's a dump is because the rents are high and ordinary Londoners shop online: Bond St going the same way

Actually you know what Oxford Street needs.....
....a really big B+M !

Small independent shops can't survive in other towns so how would they pay rents, rates, taxes, insurance plus the cost of delivering items to them.
I hate Westfield but will go there when I need certain things (I like to actually see and feel clothing items and to see how and where they are made).
I still like Oxford street but prefer to use the back turnings to get to where I need and there are still some small shops in Soho (not those sort of shops) and fitzrovia

Deffo Coal Drops Yard, I’m not a Londoner so have my outsider eyes on but that it a MUCH more interesting place to visit and spend money. On a nice day grab a drink of something that I have no idea how to pronounce and have a game of ‘spot the fashion student’. Smashing.

I think it’s the worst idea I’ve heard recently, or close to it.

Good heavens, London does not need more cars!!! I don’t live in London but I was walking down Oxford Street on Saturday. Apart from Selfridges food hall, there wasn’t one shop that enticed me in.