The Oxford Street-shoppers wear coats, scarves, hats and looks of desperation as they brave the rain and crowds in search of the perfect present. But it takes more than the distraction of flashing Christmas lights, and seasonal specials to mask the fact that the east end of the famous shopping street is looking decidedly shabby.
Rather than the lavish window displays of Selfridges or the brass bands outside Oxford Circus, the eastern end of the street, traditionally the poorest, can offer only a down-at-heel image, populated as it is with large numbers of bargain shops and beggars.
But plans are afoot to change all this. Keen to revamp this area as part of his London Plan, mayor Ken Livingstone set up a team of experts, the West End Commission, a year ago to investigate what could be done.
Under the chairmanship of former head of Land Securities, Ian Henderson, the body presented its report last Tuesday, calling for immediate action to improve an area to the east of Oxford Circus stretching to Tottenham Court Road in the east (see map, p58). Its main, controversial, recommendation was to take the small, fragmented landownerships within the entire area and put them in the hands of one private sector-led body, enabling a more co-ordinated public sector to work with private owners.
Livingstone, who backed the proposals, has declared that he and Westminster council “are willing to use compulsory purchase powers to assemble substantial holdings on the eastern end of Oxford Street, where the fragmented ownership is one of the major factors that has led to the rundown nature of the area.”
Conflicts of interest are rife at the eastern end of Oxford Street, an area that straddles the boroughs of both Westminster and Camden, takes in a proposed Crossrail site and is possibly the site for an international convention centre.
The area is also, according to CB Richard Ellis’s London Retail 2006 research, home to 152 A1 shops covering 1m sq ft, 13 A2 units in 13,000 sq ft and 11 cafés/bars/restaurants, covering 43,000 sq ft.
Commission member Tony Travers, of the London School of Economics, says: “It is necessary that some short-term vehicle is set up to create a big enough holding, with joint or public ownership prior to that holding being passed back to the private sector.”
However, Westminster council’s director of planning, Gordon Chard, says that CPOs will be used only as a last resort. “You can’t just wave a magic wand and transfer ownership. The first priority is to get all existing landowners to work together,” he says.
LandSec commissions Farrell
Some big landowners have already been trying to improve the area. In March, Land Securities, whose portfolio includes the 83,600 sq ft 12/24 Oxford Street, the Virgin Megastore at 2/5 Tottenham Court Road and the Dominion Theatre opposite, commissioned Sir Terry Farrell to create a corporate masterplan for its own landholding.
Mike Hussey, managing director of LandSec’s London portfolio, says the company will not take any action until it has certainty about the other projects in the area. “It is terribly complex, as there are existing investments with very high value already. So to go through redevelopment without assurance as to viability isn’t sensible. We would be willing to look at it again when we know what we can and can’t do.”
To make things happen, Hussey is keen that ownership “drops into the hands of a few, who then develop in bite-sized chunks so that something can actually be achieved.”
Former LandSec chief executive Ian Henderson, who led the report and is also the chair of the New West End Company Business Improvement District (BID), argues that “wider limited partnership ownership of some of the areas” would be a positive first step. He says: “When you get a single landlord, he is far better able to manage the estate and get the right tenants in, and I think you do see improvements,” he says. “Those areas such as Marylebone, Regent Street and Covent Garden, which are under a single ownership, are outperforming other areas in London. I think that it would be very positive if we could get wider limited-partnership ownership of some of the area.”
The suggestion of an alliance such as the Birmingham Alliance between LandSec, Hammerson and Henderson, born out of a competitive crisis, is well received by Hammerson group investment and development director Sven Topel. “It’s a good idea if the major landowners can pull together but it would be complex and you’d have to be clear about who did what,” he says.
As in Birmingham, it would require landowners with different schemes to come together to carry out a single scheme. Unlike Birmingham, it would not involve two rival developers racing to secure tenants for competing retail schemes.
However, other landowners in the area are less enthusiastic about plans that could do them out of valuable retail investments. “I don’t see who will fund a CPO for the area. It would cost millions,” says Christos Lazari of Lazari Investments, which this week bought a 138,000 sq ft portfolio of offices and shops on Oxford Street from PRUPIM. “I’d rather see more relaxed planning laws so owners could carry out their own redevelopment.”
Sceptics also warn that such conflicts of interest, in which no one is willing to take the first step without future certainty, have thwarted all previous efforts. They point out that even the council seems to have contributed to the sorry state of the area through years of protecting its own interests.
But the council insists it is making incremental improvements to the area. Westminster leader Simon Milton says a planning brief for the east end will be published in the next few weeks, and that this will relax the council’s stringent mixed-use policies.
Oxford Street: although a million shoppers flocked to Oxford Street last Saturday, they found little cheer at the eastern end of the thoroughfare, which offers mainly bargain shops.
