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

[mumofoneAlonebutokay]

Just that really

https://metro.co.uk/2025/01/28/oxford-street-suffers-fatal-blow-multiple-retailers-announce-leaving-22447406/

How many shops are closing in Westfield, both branches? Londoners want to drive.

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

The Underground.

I don't agree that Oxford street should be changed to be something else that already exists

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

And imo making parking cheaper and more plentiful, with clear communicated routes to Oxford street would help this

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some huge surviving shops, yes, but these are mostly precisely the kind of generic mainstream shops which are being superseded by their online versions.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.

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.

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)

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.

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.

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.

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

No because she can't park

@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.

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.

I personally love b&m 😄 I'm always in there etc

But I guess Oxford street is upmarket?

I'd love for there to be a giant the works there, omg

Yes!

Im a londoner I've been to Oxford street many times 😄

But I don't go there anymore, as I'm in my 30s with a small dd and it's a faff getting her on the tube, plus i can't walk for long 🥺

I want to drive to places!

@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.

I live in London. Parking is a nightmare at the best of times and, like a pp, I can get to Oxford Street in 20 mins on public transport. I haven’t driven into the West End for over15 years and never will again as there is absolutely no need. I also like the reduction in pollution from Sadiq’s measures and do not want to see them reversed.

Internet shopping has changed the retail landscape. You can’t turn that clock back.

It always had the upmarket feel to me growing up but I was a market clothes kid 😪😄

Fair enough, maybe it's should be just for chain retail stores instead

There was an independent shops selling market clothes in one of the units at some point I remember but Oxford street should feel more upmarket at least - I'm sure it just closed down / was a front for money laundering

Driving to Oxford Street would be absolutely mental. It would be much preferable to pedestrianise the whole thing and let people walk down it and use the space.

I didn't complain that Westfield is packed - i just don't like Stratford

London is a loud city?? Loud noise, people, cars, big red busses are what makes it great. I don't get why those in power want to eradicate it's culture for paved areas with cafes

Oh no, paved walkways with cafes, how awful.

It just is special 😄

When you think of london, you think of the long shopping streets, red busses, black taxis etc

Londoners do not want to drive. I'm a Londoner with a car but unless it's for work or you're the kind of person who has a chauffeur (or yes, may need to if you have a disability), no Londoner drives in central London when it's much quicker and easier to do it by tube and you don't have to find a parking space. The West End makes a lot of money from tourists, who also don't drive...it's just changing shopping habits, especially post Covid, that are killing it if anything is, not that you can't drive there. I feel like that's a rather outdated attitude.

I think we are still too car obsessed in modern cities, a lot of young people in London don't own cars and we need to move past the mania about cars and parking.

Many of us don't. I cannot fathom having a car. Lifetime of zone 2 (1 if I can be arsed to walk).
It is not a local high street unless you live in a £££ flat

Well even if the Mayor had some crazy power to designate swathes of parking to be free in the environs of Oxford Circus (which he doesn't as Councils control parking) how do you propose to entice people to go for this magical noisy car fume location to shop at shops that are no different to anywhere else and to buy things that are the same price or cheaper online with more choice of size? Doesn't seem to be much enthusiasm on this thread for it !