Oxford Street gets 1.5bn makeover

London's West-end is to get a fashionable makeover. Details of a £1.5bn investment to spruce up Oxford Street's main shopping area is the brainchild of Dame Judith Mayhew-Jonas, the newly appointed chairman of the New West End Company. The company has been handed the remit to revamp Oxford Street and Mayhew-Jonas' task will be to champion improvements within the Regent Street and Bond Street areas, and to coordinate the private and public sector. The idea was based on her experience in New York, and the revival of areas such as Times Square and 42nd Street. “All that regeneration was done by BIDs (Business Improvement Districts), which are business partnerships working with local authorities and get their money from a top-slice off rates, after local New York ratepayers vote for it."

In five years major improvements will see wider pavements, better lighting, organised signage, fewer buses, and "the beginning of a new dawn for the east end of Oxford Street", which she refers to as "this eyesore", while engineering a grander sense of arrival at the western Marble Arch end of the street.

"The development of Crossrail with a new station being built at Tottenham Court Road means that we have a once-in-a-century opportunity to transform the eastern end of Oxford Street," she noted.

In March 2005, New West End Company was voted by businesses to be established as a formal Business Improvement District (BID) for Bond Street, Oxford Street and Regent Street and 12 neighbouring streets. In December 2007, it was renewed for a further five years.

It is a company dedicated to driving forward London’s West End as the world’s top shopping destination. With a £34m budget until 2013 it is supported and run by major retailers and property owners.

New West End Company ensures the ongoing commercial success of the area by promoting the district, delivering street management services, funding public realm projects to improve the shopping environment. It is a leading partner in the biggest regeneration programme of London’s West End in its history.

Image: West-end