A set of initiatives on London’s Oxford Street intends to lure shoppers back by regenerating the public realm and replacing undesirable tax resistant tenants like US-style candy stores with innovative and creative start-ups.

Westminster City Council signed off this week on the first stage of funding for a £90m overhaul of Europe’s busiest shopping district, where footfall remains below pre-pandemic levels. On September 11, they approved the business case and £7.7m that will fund the first phase of plans to improve footways, greening and seating along the entire 1.8km length of Oxford Street. 

Geoff Barraclough, the council’s head of planning and economic development, tells fDi that the pandemic showed the interdependency of all sectors in London’s West End including retail, offices, culture, hospitality and tourism.

“During the pandemic we learned that if you take one leg away the whole thing wobbles,” he says. “A strong retail offer is vital to the whole. It is in everyone’s interest that Oxford Street is restored to its position as the nation’s High Street.”

The council’s efforts to regenerate Oxford Street are being done in partnership with New West End Company (NWEC), which represents 600 retail, restaurant, hotel and property owners. The mile stretch from Marble Arch to Tottenham Court Road will also be made more pedestrian-friendly with 12 new crossings.

"The West End has recovered quickly from the pandemic but there are still too many vacant units and poor-quality occupants," said Dee Corsi, the CEO of NWEC, in a statement in July.

Removing undesirables

Planned improvements to the public realm come alongside the ‘Meanwhile On: Oxford Street’ programme launched in July. This scheme encourages landlords to remove “suboptimal occupiers” like US-style candy stores with pop-up spaces for small, creative and innovative companies.

The scheme will offer up to 35 brands rent-free prime retail space and reduced business rates for a six-month period. More than 300 applications have been made by businesses to join the scheme.

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While footfall, tourism and spending have recovered in London’s West End, they remain well below pre-pandemic levels. Retail vacancy rates in Oxford Street stood at 16% at the end of the second quarter of 2023, way higher than historical levels of less than 5%, according to Knight Frank. 

This was still lower than retail vacancies in other parts of London like the City (23.4%), Knightsbridge (19.6%) and Regent Street (18.6%). Mr Barraclough asserts that the scheme has captured the “zeitgeist” moment and is an effort to fill Oxford Street with tenants paying market rents.

“We’re hoping that this will provide the canvas on which the private sector will invest,” he says. 

Companies House reform

Another driving force for the initiative is to increase business rates from Oxford Street. Many of the candy shops, souvenir and luggage stores have fictitious directors and do not have a real address at Companies House, the UK’s registry of businesses, according to Mr Barraclough.

“We're currently at about £8m in outstanding business rates that we may well never recover because we can’t find out through Companies House who actually are the people that owe us the money,” he says. 

“We urgently need reform of Companies House because we are unable to tackle the extent of economic crime and dirty money in London. It is easier to form a company than it is to get a library card.”

The situation is made more difficult by the fact ownership of Oxford Street is very fragmented. More than half of all its stores are owned by overseas investors, about 21% of which are from Hong Kong, according to Savills. 

While there has been a “good reaction from many good landlords” to the ‘Meanwhile On: Oxford Street’ initiative, Mr Barraclough says that several landlords remain resistant to the plans, but did not confirm an exact number.

Other London shopping streets with single landowners have a “stronger interest than Oxford Street” to make sure their stores are full of thriving retailers, he adds. This includes luxury shopping hotspots like Marylebone Street, which is owned by the Howard de Walden Estate, as well as Bond Street and Regent Street, which are primarily owned by the Crown Estate.

“The general consensus is that we have more retail floor space in Central London than we need,” says Mr Barraclough. “This is a conversation about the future [of retail].”