The Oxford Street planning authority passed formally from Camden and Westminster councils to the Oxford Street Development Corporation (OSDC) on 10 August, marking a structural shift in how planning decisions across the Oxford Street Mayoral Development Area (MDA) will be made, reviewed and delivered.
London mayor Sadiq Khan established the corporation to manage the pedestrianisation of Oxford Street between Orchard Street and Great Portland Street. From the transfer date, all planning applications within the Oxford Street Development area must be submitted to and decided by the OSDC rather than either of the two borough councils that previously held jurisdiction.
A design-led Oxford Street planning authority: the panel and its purpose
Central to the OSDC’s planning approach is a new Planning Design Review Panel, co-chaired by Simon Henley, co-founder and director of Henley Halebrown, and Paul Monaghan, founder of Allford Hall Monaghan Morris. According to the Oxford Street Development Corporation, the panel comprises 23 leading experts drawn from across the built environment sector, bringing a breadth of design, planning and place-making experience directly into the corporation’s decision-making framework.
Monaghan brings considerable pedigree to the co-chair role. The OSDC notes that his portfolio of landmark projects includes the redevelopment of Television Centre, 334 Oxford Street (the former Debenhams department store), social housing in Barking, New Scotland Yard, and Burntwood School, which won the Stirling Prize in 2015. He has also served as a Trustee and Ambassador for The Design Council, giving him direct experience of championing design standards at a national level.
The OSDC will also consult its Community Place Shaping Panel, ensuring that local voices sit alongside specialist design scrutiny in the development consent process.
OSDC chief planner Anne Ogundiya told the AJ: ‘Design will be central to our approach. The quality of development, architecture, public realm and the experience at street level really matters. We have an ambition to be a strongly design-led planning authority.’ She added that, while the Oxford Street project carries its own ‘very specific context’, the team would draw on lessons from both the Olympic Park and other Mayoral Development Corporations in terms of ‘ensuring planning, regeneration, design and delivery are all closely aligned’.
Ogundiya elaborated: ‘The Olympic model demonstrated the benefits of a strong place-based planning authority with clear leadership, high design expectations, early engagement and the ability to take a long-term view of regeneration. Those are principles we absolutely want to carry forward, while developing an approach that is right for the Oxford Street MDA and for the central London context.’
Retail confidence and the delivery pipeline
The OSDC has pointed to early positive signals in the area. A Central London Retail Market report shows retail vacancy rates on Oxford Street at their lowest level in 20 years, a data point the corporation cites as evidence of renewed investor and occupier confidence since the transformation plans were announced.
OSDC chief executive Nabeel Khan said: ‘The transfer of these new planning powers is a critical moment for OSDC as we transform Oxford Street into a leading destination for retail, next-generation workplaces, leisure, culture and hospitality. We will be able to help to shape the wider transformation of the Oxford Street area, with a focus on exceptional design quality, inclusion and sustainability.’
On the delivery side, the corporation is already working with urban designers at East to create 1km of pedestrianised street, and with Hawkins\Brown and landscape practice Aspect Studio on a concept design covering the full length of Oxford Street from Marble Arch to Tottenham Court Road.
Political friction remains, however. The Conservative Westminster Council came to power after the local elections in May vowing to launch a legal challenge to the pedestrianisation plan. Council leader Paul Swaddle has pledged to ‘explore every legal avenue’, although he has acknowledged that a judicial review would not be possible at the current stage of proposals.
In an interview with the AJ in June, Khan said he was not concerned about the project’s future, stating that ‘London has by and large responded in favour of setting up the corporation, so we have our mandate.’ The next concrete test comes in September, when Oxford Street will be closed to vehicle traffic, triggering a ‘testing phase’ designed to put proposals that ‘might have looked great as fancy models’ into practice and gather public feedback from the street itself.
