I read the cited report carefully.
It does not say traffic will be banned, only that is the Mayor's proposal.
It also gives us the question of the wisdom of banning buses and taxis from what I think is really the main East-West road through Central London. Indeed, it points out the difficulties that would create for many residents and potential shoppers. I would suggest, especially as London's overall policy is to minimise using private cars within Greater London.
It also does not address how access for deliveries to shops, and for utilities and builders' vehicles, is to be maintained and controlled. The pretty pictures from the Council's publicity suggests such access would be difficult, with all those obstacles in the road.
What also, of access for emergency vehicles? Not stated.
....
The shabby, cheapskate pseudo-American sweet-shops (as illustrated) were giving the street a very down-market appearance, while charging very high prices for the confectionery, as was described in an item about Oxford Street on the radio a while ago. That item reported the Council has recognised the problem and is trying to get rid of them. Many of them had already closed, or been closed by their landlords trying to restore the street's former elegance. Apart from their sheer tackyness, these sweet-shops, or many of them, were tax-avoidance or even evasion schemes, exploiting some loophole or weakness in the business tax system. I am not an accountant or solicitor so I don't know its details.
......
I suspect this would elicit only hollow laughs from a friend, an elderly widow, who lives in a not far from the famous Wembley Stadium - English football's national centre.
She tells me the Borough Council for that suburb of London does not care about its residents and their homes, and is letting the area go to rack-and-ruin.
The ULEZ policy covering all of Greater London means her son (who cares for her) cannot use his car without paying a hefty fee for each day's use - and if he was to return after midnight from somewhere outside of Greater London he would be charged twice for the same round-trip.
As for buses being banned from Oxford Street, well, they may as well be from West London when Wembley Stadium hosts a major football match or other full-capacity event such as a major rock concert. My friend reports the streets around it become choked with visiting traffic, making bus journeys very slow and difficult.
The problem was greatly exaggerated, she tells me, when the Stadium's owners, the Football Association, sold its public car-parks to developers building blocks of flats on them. Supposedly these are for student accommodation. Really? There are no universities anywhere near Wembley!
