It’s the UK’s premier urban shopping destination, but London’s Oxford Street will need a lot of TLC to recover from the impact of the coronavirus outbreak.

Oxford Street and the surrounding roads and districts of the West End have long epitomised British retail at its best and generate annual sales of £10bn.

From the early 20th century, when Selfridges opened its doors in 1909, to the 21st where it is book-ended by value fashion giant Primark, Oxford Street has been home to retail firsts and flagships. But as lockdown eases, it has a challenge on its hands to draw shoppers once again.

selfridges oxford street corner shot oxford street & duke street (1b) ph...

Selfridges has been one of the West End’s biggest draws for over a century

The first and biggest issue will be to what extent people will want to return at all, and how long that might take.

That applies to consumers of all sorts, international and local. News footage showing people returning to the London transport system might seem encouraging at first, but it is probably not.

The images of tubes and buses crowded with travellers, many not wearing face masks, would have looked to many like an off-putting human petri dish symbolising not a return to normality, but another lockdown in waiting. Without safety, nothing will follow.

Foreign visitors, such as Chinese tourists who have been big spenders, will stay away for a while as air transport faces massive disruption. Deteriorating relations between the UK and China bring another complication.

As for office workers – a big contributor to the West End’s economy – when will they be back?

Twitter for instance, with which Retail Week coincidentally shares a building near Regent Street, has told employees they need not work in the office again – ever.

That also throws into relief another hurdle that businesses will have to navigate – the need for new property models that allow retailers to thrive without driving landlords out of business.

Convince the consumer 

The coronavirus emergency is the latest and worst disruption to afflict Oxford Street, on top of annoyances such as the seemingly endless construction of the new Elizabeth Line.

If there was ever an instance where challenge needed to be turned into opportunity, the future of Oxford Street and the West End is it.

Thankfully, in the district’s business organisation New West End Company and its chief executive, the irrepressible Jace Tyrrell, who is a tireless advocate of enhancing the area, retailers have a voice and an organisation addressing problems for the common good.

The New West End Company’s coronavirus response strategy – Rescue, Reopening, Recovery – sets out detailed plans to rekindle the area’s energy and commerce.

For the all-important reopening period, recommendations include closing between 5pm and 7pm to enable phased travel for staff and customers, dedicated hours for returns (expect a lot) and no Sales or discounting.

The latter might be unwelcome news for some retailers as they think about warehouses stacked to the rafters with unsold goods, but the scrum of Sales would draw few shoppers back except the most determined bargain hunters.

Oxford Street pedestrianisation

Source: New West End Company

The case for pedestrianising Oxford Street is stronger than ever

That conflict between retail as-was and the need to think more imaginatively goes to the heart of the West End’s future relevance.

After lockdown, more than ever, it needs to become a place that people want to be rather than a place that, too frequently in the past, they tolerated.

As organisations such as transport body TfL explicitly encourage people to shop locally, old habits such as visiting Oxford Street could be hard to revive unless the environment is improved.

Lockdown has brought much comment about how much cleaner the air is and how enjoyable – if that word can be applied in the present circumstances – the lack of traffic is. As the UK emerges from the shadow of infection, the government is pushing hard the merits of walking and cycling.

Some of these changes could, in the end, make Oxford Street and the West End much better retail locations. Yes, relax parking in the short term to enable visits. But in the long term, isn’t it time, after all the stalled attempts, to finally pedestrianise Oxford Street? Plant trees down the middle, dot it with pavement cafes, link up underused green spaces to make the area anew.

Why not open up the rooftops, which could be an attraction in their own right as places to eat and drink? The rooftop terrace above John Lewis’ Oxford Street branch is one of the thoroughfare’s best-kept secrets.

If when shopping becomes fully possible again post-pandemic it returns with all the old frustrations rather than providing new forms of convenience and fun, it will lead to more retail casualties than revivals.

For retailers, property owners and town centre managers, the answer they give customers to the question ‘why should I come?’ has to be more compelling than ever.