Ban buses from Oxford Street, declares Hendy as London Mayor battle hots up

Hendy: will consider taking the buses out of the congested shopping street

Hendy: will consider taking the buses out of the congested shopping street

Transport commissioner Sir Peter Hendy last night told London's Evening Standard that buses can now be removed from Oxford Street given the increase in rail capacity provided by Crossrail.

Hendy, speaking as a number of politicians battle it out to be their parties' candidates for London Mayor, said TfL was now "looking at all the options and we will countenance taking all the buses out" given the ten trains an hour from 2018 between Bond Street at one end of the shopping street and Tottenham Court Road at the other.

He cautioned, however, that "a quarter of a million people go by buses every day to work and we've got to find some way for them to travel. If you've got a cleaning job at John Lewis and live in Willesden you don't want me to be leaving you at Marble Arch [more than ten minutes' walk away]... but you might be happy if we take you close but not right there".

He sits on the West End Partnership board, which brings together all the decision makers for the capital's West End and which seeks to protect the district from competition from out-of-town shopping centres. 

To date the London Mayor race has focused on big projects such as HS2 and the expansion of Heathrow, and on the cost of transport fares, as Transportxtra has reported here and here. But former Lib Dem candidate for the job Simon Hughes campaigned to pedestrianise Oxford Street over a decade ago.