The Sunday Times have reported that the New West End Company are planning to turn London’s famous Oxford Street into more of a ‘destination’, where visitors can do a lot more than just shop.
Westminster city council wants to allow leisure and entertainment businesses to move in to the location to prevent stores from being empty.
It plans to invest £150 million over the next three years to create ‘two Trafalgar squares’ of extra space, specifically for pedestrians, and will also work towards only allowing zero emission buses and commercial vehicles.
Jace Tyrrell, chief executive of the New West End Company, said visitors would in future arrive with different expectations. “You are not coming in to buy a dress or a shirt or a product. You are coming to a destination to do a lot more than that. The model for the future is you stay for two days, you stay for three.
“In five years’ time . . . you are going to a show, and one of the 200 galleries in the area; you are going to play Xbox with the kids in the Microsoft store and there is a fantastic light show in Regent Street.
“You are going past the Royal Academy, which has a wonderful exhibition spilling out onto the pavement on Bond Street. It becomes a reason to visit. All of our very best institutions in one place.”
