Лондонский мэр передал полномочия по планированию пешеходной Оксфорд-стрит новой корпорации

The planning powers were transferred from Camden and Westminster councils on Monday (10 August). London mayor Sadiq Khan set up the corporation to manage the pedestrianisation of Oxford Street between Orchard Street and Great Portland Street. Planning applications within the Oxford Street Development area will now have to be submitted to and decided by the OSDC. The corporation will consult its Community Place Shaping Panel as well as the new Planning Design Review Panel, which is co-chaired by Simon Henley, co-founder and director of Henley Halebrown, and Paul Monaghan, founder of Allford Hall Monaghan Morris. Advertisement OSDC chief planner Anne Ogundiya told the AJ: ‘Design will be central to our approach. The quality of development, architecture, public realm and the experience at street level really matters. We have an ambition to be a strongly design-led planning authority.’ She added that, although the Oxford Street project has its own ‘very specific context’, the team would take some cues from both the Olympic Park and other Mayoral Development Corporations in terms of ‘ensuring planning, regeneration, design and delivery are all closely aligned’. Ogundiya said: ‘The Olympic model demonstrated the benefits of a strong place-based planning authority with clear leadership, high design expectations, early engagement and the ability to take a long-term view of regeneration. ‘Those are principles we absolutely want to carry forward, while developing an approach that is right for the Oxford Street Mayoral Development Area (MDA) and for the central London context.’ The OSDC has said that the area is already showing signs of renewed confidence since the transformation plans were announced. A Central London Retail Market report shows retail vacancy rates at their lowest level in 20 years Advertisement OSDC chief executive officer Nabeel Khan said: ‘The transfer of these new planning powers is a critical moment for OSDC as we transform Oxford Street into a leading destination for retail, next-generation workplaces, leisure, culture and hospitality. ‘We will be able to help to shape the wider transformation of the Oxford Street area, with a focus on exceptional design quality, inclusion and sustainability.’ The corporation is already working with urban designers at East to create 1km of pedestrianised street, and with Hawkins\Brown and landscape practice Aspect Studio on a concept design for the full length of Oxford Street, running from Marble Arch to Tottenham Court Road. The project is facing political opposition, however, from the Conservative Westminster Council, which came to power after the local elections in May vowing to launch a legal challenge the pedestrianisation plan. The leader of the council, Paul Swaddle, has pledged to ‘explore every legal avenue’ to challenge the mayor’s plans for the area, although he has admitted that a judicial review would be impossible at the current stage of proposals. In an interview with the AJ in June, Khan said he was not concerned about the future of the project, stating that ‘London has by and large responded in favour of setting up the corporation, so we have our mandate’. For Khan and the Oxford Street team, the next big step will come in September, when the street will be closed to vehicle traffic. Following this, a ‘testing phase’ will launch to put some of the proposals which ‘might have looked great as fancy models’ into practice and get feedback from the public.