At the same time, Richard Dickinson has taken over as chief executive. A former semi-professional motorcycle racer, he has a First in tourism studies from Bournemouth, and has been steeped in the tourism and attractions industry. Most recently he was chief executive of East Midlands Tourism, before that director of strategy and insight at VisitBritain, and before that he spent four years in high level roles at the English Tourism Council, England's national tourism organisation.

He has also held director positions at the World Travel & Tourism Council and the European Commission in Brussels.

Clearly, managing and promoting Britain's biggest retail destination represents a new challenge for Dickinson. He has a budget of £34m to deliver NWEC's five-year business plan, with the £17m raised from its retail and property owner members match funded by the Mayor of London.

The next five years will see unprecedented challenges for the West End, but equally it will see some significant new opportunities.

New research from CACI highlights the potential impact of Westfield London, opening later this year at Shepherd's Bush, only a few tube stops to the west of Oxford Street, and Stratford City, opening in 2012 only a few stops to the east. At the moment CACI ranks the West End as the UK's number one retail destination, attracting annual expenditure of £4.45bn, which is more than double the spend in the second-ranked location, Birmingham.

By 2012 CACI forecasts that both Stratford City and Westfield London will have entered the UK top 10 destinations, in eighth and ninth places respectively. But Dickinson is sanguine. "We only expect Westfield London to have a 1 or 1.5 per cent impact on the West End," he says. "We have 6.5 million sq ft of retail, which means we're on a different scale. We're not complacent, but I'd worry a lot more if I was in Hammersmith or Kensington. Overall, Westfield can only be good for retailers, and our board is relaxed about it."

On the other side of the equation, Dickinson says, "The go-ahead for Crossrail and the 2012 Olympics offer great opportunities to lift the West End to the next level, positioning it as the world's truly premier international shopping destination."

He points to the Apple store on Regent Street and Abercrombie & Fitch off Bond Street as examples of the way global brands see the West End as the natural entry point into the UK market, a role he doesn't see any shopping centre fulfilling.

Dickinson has drawn up a five-point plan for the NWEC's second term, and he summarises his priorities as: "Marketing and events, bearing down on crime in the retail environment, street management, the quality of the public realm and traffic management, especially as it affects the east end of Oxford Street."

He promises that marketing will be targeted directly at things that get money into the tills. "All the signs are that it's getting tougher for retailers, so we've agreed a 20 per cent uplift in our marketing spend," he says. "Not only will we be spending more, but we aim to spend it in much more sophisticated ways."

Globally, Dickinson says the strength of the euro means Western Europe will remain a strong source of international visitors, but visitors from the US are expected to be down. To counter this, campaigns will be targeted at Russia and China.

On crime, Dickinson is quick to praise the work done under his predecessor, Gary Reeves. "Retail crime was down 16 per cent over the first term, and street crime is now at its lowest level for five years," he says. "We have 155 retailers in our crime information partnership and that's now used by other town centres as a model of best practice, especially when it comes to getting smaller retailers involved."

But he's aware there's still more to do. "We need to co-ordinate better, and new digital radios should help with that." And there are still crime hot spots. For example, smash & grab raids are a perennial problem for the Bond Street jewellers. "We're leaning on the police to take it more seriously," Dickinson says.

In the public realm, a project known as 10x2010 aims to identify 10 break-out spaces along the main shopping streets over the next two years: places like Heddon Street off Regent Street, which is already well established as an eating and drinking destination.

"There's no point having them if people don't know they're there," says Dickinson, "We're running a wayfinding pilot on Bond Street, and we'll have installed 200 new signs by the end of 2008."

Other priorities in this area will be getting rid of street clutter, including action on the notorious 'Golf Sale' signs.

And in the longer term, traffic reduction is going to be a big challenge. At times Oxford Street looks like a wall of red buses, but Dickinson says taxis and delivery vehicles need to be addressed as well. "We have 200 million visitors every year using a street that was built 300 years ago," he points out. "And we're only going to get more."

Some easy wins have already been identified, like the introduction of diagonal crossings that will allow pedestrians to get straight from one corner of Oxford Circus to the other.

But in the longer term Dickinson promises to look again at elements of the last West End masterplan, which envisaged taking the buses off Oxford Street altogether and replacing them with a shuttle service linking termini located at Tottenham Court Road and Marble Arch.

Another priority will be solving the problem of the east end of Oxford Street where a combination of congested pavements and small shop units have combined to create a poor retail environment.

"Crossrail defines the future," says Dickinson, pointing out that much of the southern side of Oxford Street will be redeveloped to accommodate the massive station at Tottenham Court Road. "But 2012 could also act as a catalyst there: we'll look at the shopfronts and the pavements."

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