It’s the UK’s best known and busiest shopping street – a mile-long shop window for some of the world’s biggest retail brands.
But by night Oxford Street is increasingly being transformed into the sort of squalid slum more associated with the London of Charles Dickens than 21st century commerce.
Gangs of homeless migrant beggars have taken to sleeping rough under the canopies along the street, congregating particularly outside the flagship branch of Marks & Spencer close to Marble Arch.
When the Daily Mail visited the street over several nights this week, among the distressing spectacles we witnessed were: two women openly using the street as a toilet, another vomiting on to the road and a man waving a wad of cash apparently won in illegal card games.
These are the inhabitants of a slum ‘village’ in the western stretch of Oxford Street where rows of makeshift ‘beds’ made from blankets or mattresses laid over wooden pallets are flagrantly set up each evening.
The two women seen relieving themselves – in a gap between public benches apparently earmarked as the camp toilet – were using abandoned supermarket shopping trolleys to move their belongings.
When the Daily Mail visited Oxford Street this week, we found a homeless encampment – and witnessed two women using a gap between public benches as a toilet
Another resident of the slum village on one of the country’s most popular retail hubs which attracts tourists from all over the world could be seen vomiting on to the road
Homeless migrant beggars have taken to sleeping rough under the canopies along the street
A card game in which hundreds of pounds appeared to change hands went on from midnight until 6am despite it being illegal to gamble for cash in a public space
A man was seen waving a wad of cash around which he apparently won in the illegal card game
Despite their apparent destitution, many of those occupying the beds could be seen scrolling on iPhones.
A card game meanwhile – in which hundreds of pounds appeared to change hands – went on from midnight until 6am despite it being illegal to gamble for cash in a public space.
And it’s at this point in the 24-hour cycle that Oxford Street begins to return to something more like normal.
Because soon after 6am various individuals – workers from the stores as well as council workers – emerge to try to persuade the slumbering homeless to move on.
And most do, stashing their bedding and walking the short distance to Marble Arch or Oxford Circus to set up begging pitches – though others are thought to be pickpockets, like the Fagin gang in Dickens’s Oliver Twist.
One commuter, who passes through Oxford Street shortly after 6am every day on his way to work, says the scenes we witnessed have become a grimly familiar part of his daily morning journey to work.
He says the encampment has been there for months now, but that recently it has begun to get bigger, meaning conditions are deteriorating rapidly.
‘It has really escalated in recent weeks,’ he told the Daily Mail. ‘At first they were just sleeping there, drinking and eating, but now they are using the street as a toilet and there are all-night drinking gambling sessions going on as well.
‘There’s drinking and fighting. It’s intimidating and upsetting.
‘You come through here first thing in the morning and you just cannot believe what you are seeing.
‘This is Oxford Street. It is supposed to be one of the best shopping streets in the world. But it’s like a third world slum.
‘They’re about to spend £150million to partly pedestrianise it to make Oxford Street more attractive to tourists and shoppers – but if that’s the plan they really need to get rid of this squalor.’
Unlike the traditional image of rough sleepers – those who have fallen on hard times after a personal financial crisis or mental health episode – many of those on Oxford Street are said to have electively set up there, resisting efforts to get them into secure accommodation.
Another office worker who starts at 6am told us: ‘I have seen people repeatedly crouching down to use the seating areas on Oxford Street as toilets.
‘Yesterday morning, at about 6.10am, there were around eight men still awake after what appeared to have been an all-night card game outside M&S.
‘They had wads of cash in their hands. I would estimate there was about £500 in each pile. They were arguing over who had won what and shouting at each other.
‘And there’s a sense of menace if you get too close. I have been spat on, shouted at, threatened all sorts, just for passing by.
‘I would not want to walk past there if I were a woman.
‘I cannot understand why these people are just allowed to effectively live there. Why can’t they be moved?’
Another worker told us: ‘Between about 6am and 8am they start waking up under their duvets. Then on waking they want to relieve themselves. I have seen men and women defecating in the street, and it’s a daily occurrence to see them urinating.
‘The smell can be unbelievably bad. It’s like an open air slum there in the mornings.
‘There are very often empty alcohol bottles left behind as well – on the pavement naturally not in any bin.
‘This is one of the best-known shopping streets in the world. Tourists come here from everywhere and you have people potentially sitting down where human waste has been left.’
The commuter said the group appears to move between Oxford Street, Marble Arch and Park Lane, often using shopping trolleys to transport bedding and other belongings.
‘They beg, steal and lash out at anyone getting too close or daring to take photos,’ he said.
‘Sometimes there might be about 20 people, but at other times I have seen what looks like 50 or 60.
‘They use shopping trolleys to move their bedding around. They drink there, eat there and sleep there overnight, then during the day they move around again.’
The commuter also said that shop staff arriving for early shifts are frequently forced to make their way through the groups to get to their workplace.
‘You have got staff trying to get into work in the morning who have to run the gauntlet to get past them,’ he said.
‘I have been spat at and I have seen them shouting at people. There is aggressive begging as well.
‘Police will move them on, but then they can be back 20 minutes later.
‘If I were a tourist and I stepped in human waste on Oxford Street, I would be furious.
‘You often see families and children sitting in the seats outside these stores not knowing what was happening there hours earlier.
‘It is just unbelievable.’
Soon after 6am Oxford Street begins to return to something approaching normality as workers from the stores as well as council workers arrive and try to persuade the homeless to move on
When approached outside M&S to discuss their living situation this week, the inhabitants became angry and gesticulated menacingly at our reporter.
Some 67 per cent of those living rough in Westminster are believed to be from outside the UK according to a 2024 report from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities.
Westminster recorded 355 rough sleepers in the year to June 2025 – up 25 per cent year-on-year and roughly double the figure seen in 2021.
The settlement on Oxford Street is simply the latest example of its kind to spring up in what were previously prestigious areas of the capital – as the Daily Mail has documented extensively.
These have recently included similar encampments made up of clusters of tents on Tottenham Court Road, behind the Savoy Hotel on the Strand, outside Grade I-listed Apsley House on the corner of Hyde Park and beside Westminster Cathedral.
The Mail has also reported on homeless delivery riders living in tents and makeshift camps in trendy Shoreditch and north London’s Clissold Park.
Fed-up local residents at these sites have complained of dumped food, rats and human excrement.
But researchers say that across London, numbers of rough sleepers, despite becoming more visible, are showing signs of decline.
Across the capital, outreach teams found 3,959 people sleeping rough between April and June this year – a fall of 10 per cent on the same period in 2025.
Of those, 1,685 were new to the streets, while 680 were classed as living on the streets and a further 1,645 were recorded as intermittent rough sleepers, according to figures from the Combined Homelessness and Information Network.
The issue of homelessness has become a political hot potato after Mayor Sadiq Khan pledged during his 2024 re-election campaign to end rough sleeping in the capital.
The Conservatives, who now run Westminster Council, previously took aim at Labour for their failings in cleaning up the homeless issue on Oxford Street.
Disputes over who owns particular stretches of land have led to difficulties in removing some disruptive beggars from certain areas.
Homelessness charities, meanwhile, have warned that rough sleeping remains ‘extremely high by historic standards’ and argue that long-term prevention, housing support and emergency provision are all needed to bring numbers down.
Residents of the migrant camp transport their belongings in shopping trolleys and move between mostly Marble Arch or Oxford Circus
The causes of homelessness are notoriously complex but the single most common trigger is believed to be losing a job at short notice – and with most Britons having only the equivalent of a month’s salary in savings millions of people are in a potentially precarious position.
While those who arrive from overseas without an established support network are even more likely to end up on the streets if work falls through.
Some rough sleepers are believed to use their position on the street as a cover to scam or steal from passers-by.
Councillor Caroline Sargent, deputy leader of Westminster Council, said: ‘Anti-social behaviour and crime have no place in our city.
‘As a council, we’re doing our part in trying to move people who are harming our public spaces.
‘But we expect a tougher approach from the police, and we need the Home Office to back us up with new legislation to keep our streets safe for residents and visitors.’
A spokesperson for the Mayor of London said: ‘No one should have to sleep rough in London. The Mayor is committed to ending rough sleeping in the capital by 2030.
‘The Mayor continues to work with Government, boroughs and partners to prevent homelessness and since Sadiq became Mayor, more than 20,000 people have been helped off the streets.
‘We take reports of anti-social behaviour very seriously and continue to work with Westminster City Council, the Metropolitan Police Service and local businesses to ensure that they are fully investigated and responded to.’
Marks & Spencer was also contacted for comment.
Our revelations about the squalor of Oxford Street at night come nine months after the Mail exposed how dozens of men were sleeping rough outside John Lewis’s Christmas display windows a few hundred yards to the east.
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