Now moves to make Oxford Street a traffic-free zone

TRAFFIC should be barred permanently from Oxford Street to boost business and reduce crime, the Liberal Democrats said today.

The call came after London's best-known high street was pedestrianised on Saturday for the first time in its history for a free festival.

The Dress to Impress festival was prompted by a dire summer's trading following the London bombings and aimed to restore shoppers' confidence and boost takings.

It attracted half a million people and featured performances by Charlotte Church and Rachel Stevens, Now the Lib Dems say it should be repeated - and Oxford Street should eventually be permanently pedestrianisedby 2009.

Spokesman Geoff Pope said: "The success of the traffic-free day on Saturday shows what is needed to encourage people back into the capital.

"It is time to give some bold, fresh, new thinking to the problems that London's premier shopping street has to face. The endless jam of diesel buses all moving at a snail's pace benefits no one." However-Bob Oddy, general secretary-of the Licensed Taxi Drivers' Association, said: "Perhaps those that came up with this crackpot scheme should tell us how all the shoppers who get to Oxford Street by taxi and by bus would get there. It is madness."

A spokesperson for the Mayor of London said: " Pedestrianising Oxford Street would have huge traffic implications for the whole of the West End and make it more difficult for people to get into the centre of the capital."

A spokesman for the new West End company, which represents businesses in Oxford Street, Bond Street and Regent Street, said: "Saturday was excellent.

It shows there needs to be a better balance between vehicles and pedestrians.

It is about creating a shopping destination, not just a thoroughfare.

"The festival was the brainchild of MS boss Stuart Rose and the culmination of a month of events called Everyone's London, which included the Mayor's Thames Festival, the Regent Street Festival and the London leg of the Tour of Britain cycle race.

An estimated two million people visited all the events.

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