Oxford Street no longer a ‘destination’

BY BRENDAN WONG

A community meeting held on Oxford Street last week failed to deliver any real outcomes for the ailing thoroughfare, according to one local business owner.

Oxford Street businessman Phil Wharton told The City News the meeting was dominated by council supporters making ‘feel-good statements’.

‘They’re talking about making it a cultural quarter’ but it’s a little bit late to be making statements about what you might be doing,’ he said. ‘They’ve had the thing for four years and have done nothing. In fact, by any measure, Oxford Street is worst than when these councillors took over four years ago.’

Mr Wharton said many council-owned properties at the northern end of Oxford Street were unoccupied and had become rundown because they were not being leased to the public. One block of buildings from the Pink Peppercorn restaurant down to Sax Leather had been derelict and unused for years, Wharton said.

‘Other businesses invest in the area, I built a cafe just over two years ago,’ Mr Wharton said. ‘My cafe actually doesn’t have that many customers. It’s not because we don’t do a good coffee or a good sandwich or anything but because there’s no one upstairs in the buildings.’

Mr Wharton said that if council renovated their properties local businesses would see more customers.

‘Once you have a heartbeat, then you can look at the bits and pieces to add on, the cultural quarter and all these sort of things,’ he said.

Although Mr Wharton had enquired about the matter at the meeting the City of Sydney’s CEO Monica Barone simply ‘rehashed the same tired information from a flawed and dated study’.

Mr Wharton said the situation in Oxford Street is the worst he has seen it, with many unoccupied shops. Another factor, he said, was the RTA’s view of Oxford Street as a transit way rather than a destination.