Oxford Street bombshell as Labour chief describes Sadiq Khan quango as 'dangerous for democracy'

"Development corporations normally exist to take an area of brownfield, untransformed land and turn it into an end state. You take a field and turn it into a new town; you take an old gaswork and turn it into a business park. Here we have got an area which is already developed, and there already is development going through - the new House of Fraser, the new Debenhams buildings, coming on stream soon, Wells House, South Milton triangle underway a development pipeline underway under existing City plan and the existing Westminster planning committee."

"I think it is dangerous for democracy for an unelected body like this one to take sweeping planning powers without a clear political direction about what it's going to do with those powers. This is a vacuum that this organisation is stepping into. We don't know what you're going to do with the planning powers you are going to get."

"We already have a planning committee at Westminster; we already have a plan that is working fine. This organisation needs to elaborate something detailed and something better before I could support [it]."

Geoff Barraclough, Westminster council's cabinet member for planning, criticized the Oxford Street development corporation's proposal to establish a planning committee during a City Hall meeting. He argued that development corporations typically transform undeveloped brownfield sites into new areas, but Oxford Street is already developed with an active development pipeline under existing planning processes. Barraclough contended it is dangerous for democracy to grant sweeping planning powers to an unelected body without clear political direction or demonstrated superiority over existing Westminster planning structures. This marks the second instance of senior Labour figures on Westminster council publicly criticizing the Labour mayor's development corporation plans.

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