Khan to ban traffic from struggling Oxford St

Traffic will be banned from London's Oxford Street under plans announced by the mayor, Sadiq Khan, using new powers from Labour to push through long-thwarted pedestrianization of the capital's famous shopping strip.

- Gwyn Topham & Sarah Butler

Khan said urgent action was needed so the mile-long street could "once again become the leading retail destination in the world".

The deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, is expected to sign off a proposed mayoral development area, giving greater powers to Khan as he revives plans he first laid out in 2017.

However, the news was met with dismay by Westminster city council, which blocked the previous plan amid concerns from businesses and residents over the rerouting of buses, and whose own £90m "shovel-ready" regeneration plans for the street may now be superseded.

Politicians and retailers have for years sought to breathe new life into a street whose renown and cultural position on the most expensive side of the Monopoly board have long been at odds with a down-at-heel reality. A 1960s plan to carry shoppers via a travelator and a 1970s scheme for a track carrying cars on air cushions failed to take off.

However, traffic has been incrementally limited since proposals for pedestrianisation under the former London mayor Ken Livingstone were knocked back two decades ago.

Now, under the new plans, the red doubledecker buses and black cabs that queue down Oxford Street would be rerouted elsewhere.