Turn the empty Debenhams store into a library

• WESTMINSTER City Council’s plans for Oxford Street are woefully unimaginative and the question must be how much will 1,500 temporary plants and plastic seating cost? (Marble Arch to get its own hill, February 23).

Was building an earth mound offering panoramic views of a major traffic intersection and a Transport for London bus stand pulled out of a hat?

A proposal to turn the empty Debenhams store into a library, offering a major civic amenity at the heart of the West End, is inspired, (A library at the Debenhams site could offer a space with civic pride, March 12 and Debenhams empty store could be turned into a library, March 5).

The city council spent over £1million pounds not building a new civic library having sold off the Marylebone Road site and now they have £150million to overhaul the public realm.

Here’s the opportunity for the city council’s executive director of growth and planning, accompanied by her “place-makers”, to begin to change and improve the focus away from mainly retail and hospitality into education and self-improvement.

The many empty, disembowelled, shops on Oxford Street could, with financial assistance from the council, become short-term “bricks and mortar” locations for innovative start-up companies to bring alternative lifestyle designs to market, thus sparking some life into an ailing and moribund streetscape.

ETHAN POD
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