Cllr Tim Barnes, Deputy Leader of Westminster City Council, has accused the Mayor of London of being "misleading" in his claims of close cooperation with the council over the pedestrianisation of Oxford Street, telling LBC that the council had repeatedly requested a copy of the Mayor's environmental impact submission to government since the start of the month, only for the request to be refused and the document eventually obtained from central government instead.
Barnes said the Mayor "claimed he was gonna be the green mayor" but "is ending up being the mean mayor with all of the corners he wants to cut on this project," pointing to the Mayor's own acknowledgement that pollution could increase to the point of risking nitrous oxide targets in areas such as Piccadilly. While supportive of improving Oxford Street in principle, and acknowledging the project will probably go ahead, Barnes said the wider economic activity in surrounding areas including Mayfair, Soho and Fitzrovia was worth far more than Oxford Street itself, and that diverting traffic into side streets risked pushing congestion and emissions across central London rather than removing them. He said a full environmental impact assessment was essential to understand and mitigate the effects on the health, wellbeing and safety of residents and the nearly one million people who commute into Westminster each day.
Cllr Tim Barnes told LBC
"The environmental impact assessment is all about trying to work out what the impact will be on noise, on air pollution, on cyclist and pedestrian safety... we think it's critical that we understand the impact on health, on safety, on people's lives before we go ahead with this project.
"Pushing the traffic that's on Oxford Street today into all of the little side roads around will immediately mean that there'll be more buses and trucks and traffic of all sorts sitting away, chugging away in those little streets, not able to get to where they need to be and pushing out fumes."
Cllr Barnes made it clear he was not opposed to the pedestrianisation of Oxford Street.
"I'm of the view that this project is probably gonna go ahead. The mayor's probably gonna get what he wants. But what we should do is make sure that it's the best that it can be.
He was sharper on the Mayor's own conduct, though, saying,
"He claimed he was gonna be the green mayor. He's ending up being the mean mayor with all of the corners he wants to cut on this project."
