Oxford Street will be closed to traffic from Sunday night, and Westminster City Council has told BBC London that the Mayor's £150 million scheme is going live before it is ready.
Cllr Tim Barnes, Deputy Leader of Westminster City Council, was interviewed for the lunchtime bulletin on Friday 23 October as the street prepared to become pedestrian-only, with the exception of night-time deliveries.
"We are concerned that some of the things that you'd expect at this point to have been resolved haven't yet been resolved," he said. "It's been the case right the way through this process that it's felt rushed and it's felt under-resourced."
The pedestrianisation of Oxford Street has been proposed and dropped several times over the years. What changed this time is that the Mayor of London set up a development corporation for the project, which took the planning process out of the council's hands. The council has raised concerns about safety and accessibility, and main construction work is not expected to begin until next spring.
Cllr Barnes was clear that the problem is the timetable, not the people working on it. "Some of the officers in the Mayor's team have done an excellent job, and I really thank and applaud their efforts in all of this," he said. "But realistically, if we wanted this to be the best that it could be, we would've taken more time over it and the Mayor wouldn't have put this artificial deadline on things. We'd have had a much better scheme if we'd launched it next year."
Asked whether the scheme was rushed, he replied: "It feels rushed, it feels under-resourced, and it feels slightly undercooked."
The BBC's report also heard from residents and a trader in Marylebone, who fear that buses, taxis, motorcycles, delivery vehicles and bicycles will be pushed into the residential streets north of Oxford Street, with Wigmore Street taking much of the load. Transport for London says delays on adjacent roads will be minimal.
Westminster City Council wants Oxford Street to succeed as the nation's high street. It will keep pressing the Mayor's development corporation to resolve the outstanding safety, accessibility and traffic questions as the scheme beds in.
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