High Streets for All Challenge

Through a simple call-out the GLA and London boroughs will invite partnerships that are interested in developing an idea for their local area to come forward by 17 May, encouraging and supporting the widest participation from London’s diverse communities. London boroughs (Local Authorities) with support from the GLA will assess responses to the call to identify their high street exemplar location for the Challenge – one in each borough. Please see ‘How to take part in the Challenge’ for further details.

The Local Authority will be expected to support the partnership and where appropriate act as the lead and/or accountable body. Each selected exemplar location will receive up to £20,000 seed funding to develop and grow their partnership, engage locally, build capacity, and co-design the spatial brief for their high street strategy, including the request for any additional funding. In addition, exemplar partnerships can call on support offered by the GLA and its mission partners via a programme of workshops and the Challenge Expert Panel, which brings together GLA policy leads and advisors from a range of disciplines and sectors.

In October, the GLA will make available between £100,000 and £200,000 additional development funding to 10 to 12 exemplar projects, to provide capacity for the preparation of strategies and proposals that are live, dynamic, experimental and reflect locally determined priorities. A further £100,000 capital funding will be provided to deliver ‘proof of concept’ activities for up to five exemplar projects to test the effectiveness of proposed strategies and help develop and deliver larger project proposals.

All exemplar projects will share learnings to contribute to a ‘community of practice’ and will actively build a pipeline of schemes to take advantage of future investment opportunities.

A second round of exemplars will receive funding in 2022, and, subject to funding a third cohort the following year.

The Mayor of London will provide £2.5 million revenue funding in the first round of the Challenge.

At the beginning of stage 2, ‘Gathering around the flag’, each preferred partnership and exemplar location as identified by each London borough will receive up to £20,000 seed funding to develop their partnership, engage the local community, build capacity and co-design the spatial brief for their high street strategy. The selected partnerships will work with their borough, the GLA Regeneration team and the Challenge Experts Panel to develop their exemplar project, including their request for additional development funding and/or other forms of support.

At stage 3, ‘Drawing up the strategy’, 10 to 12 of the exemplar projects will receive between £100,000 and £200,000 additional development funding. This funding can be used to develop the place-based strategies, community engagement, feasibility work and proposals for their asset.

Exemplars that intend to integrate a local ownership or management model such as a community business, co-operative structure or raise of alternative finance through community shares (for an asset or enterprise at the centre of a strategy) will be eligible to use the funding for dedicated professional expertise to develop appropriate governance, legal and business planning arrangements.

In addition, up to £0.5 million capital funding will be available to deliver ‘proof of concept’ activities for up to five exemplars in the first round. This funding will be used to test strategies and inform the development of longer term proposals – for instance the temporary closing of a road, a meanwhile or intensified use of a local civic asset or an experimental use of technology.

Funding allocations will be made by the GLA in consultation with The London Economic Action Partnership (LEAP), based on an assessment of proposals against the stated criteria as well as anticipated outcomes and investment readiness.

You should consider how investment in the proposed exemplar project could enhance existing area-based investment streams in the context of recovery from the pandemic. Existing investment programmes could include but are not limited to the GLA’s Community-Led Recovery Grants, Make London, Good Growth Fund and Good Growth Fund Accelerator, Creative Enterprise Zones, the London Borough of Culture programme, TfL Liveable Neighbourhoods, the Future High Streets Fund and Historic England’s Heritage Action Zones. You should also consider how the Challenge can provide a strategic approach to use Additional Restriction Grants to support local businesses affected by the pandemic.

London boroughs that wish to focus their plans largely on the environmental challenge and which have relevant projects requiring funding that can get underway in 2021-22 and deliver tangible outputs in the next 12 months, should also consider applying to the Mayor’s Future Neighbourhoods 2030 programme. This £7.5m programme will support the development of two to four exemplar Future Neighbourhoods in two phases over the next three years. £3m will be made available for strategies and projects in the first phase. Future Neighbourhoods will be located in areas most adversely impacted by the pandemic and high streets could form part of these neighbourhoods.

Each selected partnership will be able to access a dedicated non-financial support offer to help projects come together as a community of practice, share transferable learnings and develop robust, deliverable projects that respond to local challenges or opportunities and aspire to the highest standards of design.

A package of measures will range from High Street Network events to thematic workshops. Selected partnerships can also access advice and support offered by the GLA Regeneration team and the Challenge Experts Panel. This panel will comprise GLA policy leads – including Culture and Creative Industries, 24 hour London, Economic Development, Communities and Social Policy, Health, Food, Planning, Environment, Housing & Land, Transport – along with London Councils, Nesta, the High Street Task Force, Mayor’s Design Advocates and others, to advise the selected partnerships on request.

The Possibilities Playbook presents innovative responses offered by exemplary partnerships and highlights useful resources and precedents for the development of high street strategies. During the Challenge, the Possibilities Playbook will become a live repository that can grow to showcase the exemplar projects to potential funders and supporters, celebrate successes with London’s communities and share transferable learnings with the wider network.

In developing your proposals, we also encourage you to think about a high-quality and inclusive built environment – as set out in the Mayor’s Good Growth by Design programme. We encourage you to draw on the right professional expertise from London’s rich and diverse pool of architecture and urban design talent. The way in which design quality is maintained throughout the development and delivery of a project is an important consideration for projects that the Mayor invests in.

This offer will be developed and delivered by relevant GLA teams and mission partners. Please see the Resources section of this document for further detail.

You should describe this in the context of one or more of the key questions of the Challenge and how these manifest locally.

Your description should demonstrate an excellent understanding of the place, its social, cultural and economic role, its local challenges and needs, and its possibilities to bring forward experimental and innovative solutions that can also act as pilots for other high streets.

High streets represent their local population and provide the perfect location to pilot participatory activities, innovation and more inclusive practices. Proposals should target areas where local communities have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic or are otherwise excluded from innovation and renewal, calibrating an adaptive strategy to create resilience, boost economic activity and yield wider public value.

There is flexibility about which activities the High Streets for All Challenge can support, as long as they are part of a coherent package focused on partnership formation and development of a locally rooted adaptive strategy; and as long as they aim to deliver the stated mission of delivering enhanced public spaces and exciting new uses for underused high street buildings and spaces – working with London’s diverse communities.

The High Streets for All Challenge aims to build a ‘coalition of transformation’ at the high street scale with local authorities, local service providers, private enterprise, land and commercial interests, civic and equality led organisations, community groups and anchor institutions such as hospitals, university, colleges or cultural venues. We seek proposals from partnerships which champion collaborative working, building on the strengths of different organisations to deliver a holistic high street recovery strategy.

We want you to engage with a wide range of people and organisations to test ideas and use local knowledge to define the concept and scope of your strategy and more targeted asset-based proposals. We are keen to see local stakeholders convene and coordinate multifaceted proposals with specific strands led by local experts.

You should make sure you can communicate good knowledge of local business and community capabilities and demonstrate that collaboration can move recovery actions forward. The lead organisation must be able to demonstrate that the partnership has the capacity and ability to develop a strategy and it must be willing to take overall responsibility for the delivery and management of project.

Ultimately, high street recovery is something that Londoners and local stakeholders should feel that they are part of. Everyone should have opportunities to contribute to making and remaking their local area by coming together to develop common spaces and shared resources. We know that community and civil society groups as well as local businesses, cultural and third sector organisations are full of great ideas and are well placed to propose sustainable solutions to local challenges or opportunities.

Assets that can create public value should be at the centre of locally derived recovery plans: this can be an underused building, a public space or a piece of infrastructure. You should consider which available asset/s and priority areas for intervention can help to catalyse a new and more diverse high street mix of uses that responds to the impact of COVID-19 and to long term restructuring of the high street.

Expanding community or local authority ownership on the high street; enabling the creative reuse of vacant and underused assets with a focus on affordability, flexibility and meanwhile use; and working with anchor institutions that own high street assets is particularly pertinent following the introduction of the commercial, business and service (class E) use class which allows landowners to move between a wider variety of uses without planning permission.

Similarly, there is an urgency to ensure that public spaces on or nearby the high streets – including those which are privately owned – are available as a shared resource for all Londoners in terms of their health and wellbeing and quality of life, reflecting the impact of COVID-19 restrictions and lockdown measures on Londoners and the disproportionate reliance on public space by disadvantaged groups lacking access to private amenity space.

The questions above form part of the criteria against which proposals will be assessed to determine the preferred partnership and exemplar location in each London borough. We will also consider the wider strategic fit of each proposal to ensure a balanced programme of innovative and inclusive exemplars in areas of high need which address all key Challenge areas.

• Place-based challenge and proposition – 40 per cent
• Partnership – 20 per cent
• Asset – 20 per cent
• Wider strategic fit with programme – 20 per cent

Stage 1 responses will need to be submitted to the GLA by email to [email protected] no later than 4pm on Monday 17 May 2021.

The GLA will share stage 1 submissions with the relevant London boroughs who will determine one preferred partnership and exemplar location in accordance with the criteria set out above. They can call on the GLA, London Councils, and other mission partners to help make their decision. London boroughs will confirm their preferred partnership and exemplar location by mid-June 2021. These will form the exemplar projects going forward in the Challenge.

Walworth has a cultural and industrial heritage which forms a key part of its identity today. It is located between several regeneration areas including the Old Kent Road, the Aylesbury Estate and Elephant and Castle which together will create around 30,000 new homes. East Street, in Walworth was uninviting, with nowhere to rest and cars running across the street.

A number of shops were boarded up and crowded market pitches were offering a narrow variety of goods on dilapidated market stalls. There was a risk of the area being ‘left behind’ and missing out on the benefits that new and existing residents and activity could bring to the area.

In 2015 Southwark Council and the GLA commissioned the What Walworth Wants strategy. The strategy engaged with local people, capturing needs and ambitions for the area, and identifying key areas for investment. The strategy celebrates the identities and qualities of the different locations, aiming to build resilience of existing businesses and local amenities and knitting together gaps between development. It includes a menu of projects to be delivered by a variety of organisations ranging from short, cheap, quick wins through to longer term larger capital.

What Walworth Wants sets out a collectively agreed big picture which can be delivered incrementally as and when funds become available. Realistic expectations were set, starting with a focus on the street market with little improvements like branded tote bags, carefully designed canopies and barrows, movable market furniture and bird boxes. This paved the way to a locally agreed and improved market layout which alleviated pedestrian congestion. This was complemented with creative wayfinding to draw people in from further afield. Places for shoppers to relax and chat were introduced, shop fronts refurbished, and East Street Library was extended to provide flexible and affordable meeting spaces and to establish a more open and accessible relationship with the street.

What Walworth Wants asserts East Street’s function as the local community market and ‘go to’ place for affordable high-quality fruit and vegetables as well as supporting community life. This has resulted in further inward investment including Peabody Trust refurbishing its properties and providing an affordable co-working space and community activities, the installation of new electric connections for market pitches and traffic calming measures to reduce road danger, stress, noise and air pollution. The work has also helped to improve relationships between shop keepers and market traders strengthening the resilience of the high street during a major period of change and has resulted in engendering a sense of place and pride in the area, where all people feel welcome.

Walthamstow High Street’s considerable length and differences in the level of footfall and liveliness from end to end presented a challenge in terms of placemaking and being able to create a collective identity. Through an extensive research and engagement programme, Waltham Forest Council gained a detailed understanding of the challenges faced by residents, businesses and workers at night and identified that more than half of the businesses along the High Street were closed by 7pm. Younger and older residents were concerned about safety in a number of blind spots, and there was a general lack of information on evening venues and activities.

The delivery of a Night Time Enterprise Zone Pilot with support from City Hall followed a strategic recommendation by the London Night Time Commission. It allowed the council to strengthen partnerships with local residents and businesses with the aim of scoping experimental approaches to diversify the high street offer, encourage extended opening times, increase awareness of the night time offer and activate the high street at night.

The partnership enabled the council to collect valuable economic and social data, to create a robust evidence-based action plan for future growth in the evening. The result was a detailed up-to-date picture of Walthamstow High Street at night which shaped the following pilot activities:

• High Street ADVENTures: the high street was successfully reclaimed for night time use through a curated event which encouraged businesses to stay open longer into the evening.
• Later Opening Hours Fund: the fund supported cultural activity, events and workshops on the street and inside shops, cafes and bars.
• Marketing and promotion: the council worked in partnership with residents, businesses and local arts provider Artillery to compile listings of all existing events and put out an open call to artists to run new activities during extended hours in shops, cafes and community spaces.
• Stow Exchange: a council-owned space was turned into an alcohol-free pop-up bar with inclusive events for young people. The same space was also used for engagement, workshops and focus groups, and crime reduction training for local businesses by the Safer Sounds Partnership.
• Night Time Enterprise Toolkit: this step-by-step guide aims to encourage more businesses to operate after 6pm. It outlines the key considerations for businesses wanting to operate at night.

The pilot has demonstrated a wealth of opportunities to re-imagine and animate high streets later into the evening, and that a night time economy does not need to result in a monoculture based on alcohol consumption.

The high street footfall increased by 22 per cent at night, perceptions of safety have improved, and the programme helped to create a more inclusive and welcoming environment, encouraging families to extend their stay on the high street.

The re-purposed council space has provided a much-needed space for young people to meet and participate in the life of Walthamstow. The success of the pilot suggests that Night Time Enterprise Zones could be a key tool in local strategies to support high street recovery across London.

The project focuses on addressing two specific local challenges. The first is to move Brixton’s local economy away from an overreliance on food and beverage and retail and introduce new Creative and Digital Industries (CDI) companies to the area. The second challenge is to protect existing vital town centre uses that contribute so valuably to the identity of the area and make it the place that it is. Young people, third sector and cultural organisations are all at risk of being priced out as Brixton changes and rents increase.

International House is a collaborative project between affordable workspace operator 3Space and Lambeth Council which is structured around a lease with key social value performance indicators. 3Space have committed to pay the council a guaranteed rent of £1.1 million over five years as well as making significant improvements to the asset with £900,000 invested to date. In addition to the financial commitment there are several social value outputs which are delivered by the tenants and delivery partners.

The integrated approach of the project has helped to fulfil the long-term ambitions for Brixton’s Creative Enterprise Zone by providing an affordable local testbed for business start-up innovation alongside embedding community use. It has also furthered Lambeth’s Creative and Digital Industry Strategy and the Brixton Economic Action Plan by introducing new CDI businesses to the area as well as providing a platform to work and engage with the public in an alternative and informal space.

3Space introduced the ‘BuyGiveWork’ programme whereby for every desk sold on commercial terms, one is given away rent free to support charities and social purpose organisations. The 70,000 sq ft building is split into five Buy Floors and five Give Floors. The Buy Floors house everything from individual freelancers to a company with 100 employees. The Give Floors accommodate users at risk of displacement due to changing market conditions. It has also hosted other activities such as monthly Vision of Success meetings for children who are recently out of the care system.

The project has successfully managed to balance the competing demands of the town centre. International House has acted as both a ‘market maker’ introducing CDI uses whilst protecting important social, economic and cultural activities. For example, providing a new home through the Give Floor offer for Photofusion, the UK’s largest and most comprehensive photography resource centre and longstanding Brixton resident. The two strands of the BuyGiveWork model allow for an integrated offer in which commercial activity not only cross-subsidises social uses, but also provides jobs, apprenticeships through the council’s Made Apprentice Scheme and opportunities for local residents and businesses. It is also the first Living Wage Building in the UK, complementing local commitments through the Creative Enterprise Zone to promote inclusive growth, improved working conditions and progression opportunities for employees in the creative sector. It contributes around £16 million GVA to the local economy and generates more than £2.7 million in social value outputs each year, including £0.8 million in rent forgone to civil society. In doing so, International House has set a high standard for other operators moving into the area.

Like in other suburban places where many residents spend much of their time elsewhere, a key challenge was to address the lack of community engagement and investment. The Museum of Futures and subsequent spaces therefore aimed to provide opportunities to create a stronger sense of place with activities and opportunities for coming together. The site for the Museum of Futures is located away from the busier part of the high street, therefore creating a strong presence to draw people in was an important element of the brief.

The project was conceived by local organisation The Community Brain. Early support from City Hall’s Good Growth Fund helped create confidence amongst members of the group and key partners. Kingston University saw the potential to use the space as a venue for teaching and carrying out activities with residents, including engagement with hard-to-reach communities during the pandemic. One of the most important outcomes has been the partnership that has grown between local people, organisations and businesses.

The work was underpinned by two simple principles: ‘Everyone is brilliant if they are given the help and support to be brilliant’ and ‘the Permission to be brilliant’. It was The Community Brain’s belief that a flexible, safe and supportive space would allow people to try new ideas or support others in developing theirs. This was achieved by creating an atmosphere and environment that is encouraging, enabling and ‘owned’ by the people using the space and being always open to new initiatives.

In response to local demand, a community kitchen was fitted to commercial standards to benefit a wide range of start-up businesses to test their concepts and help groups tackling food poverty to offer support, host events and learning.

Since the space opened, it has been used by a wide range of individuals, groups, start-up businesses and organisations in range of different ways from workshops and learning to live events.

The demand for such spaces enabled the creation of a second space ‘The Farm of Futures’, a large local allotment. This has been designed to farm waste out of the community and to farm community ideas, providing a home to four start-up businesses all of which have sustainability at their core. The third space ‘Baking Ideas’ has also opened at the nearby railway station expanding the opportunities for community interaction seeded by the Museum of Futures.

The greatest success has been the number of other community and business ideas and projects that have sprung up as a result of those initial interventions. This has led to a growth in activity not just in Surbiton and Tolworth but beyond to neighbouring areas such as Old Malden and Chessington encouraging more people and communities to believe they can be the agents of positive change in their local areas.

Ilford, which ranks amongst the 20 per cent most deprived areas in London, is marked by a low wage economy, low quality and relatively high-cost office accommodation not suited to supporting growing start-up businesses, and a lack of social and cultural infrastructure, providing a very limited evening offer. This has been recognised in Redbridge Council’s ‘Ilford for All Manifesto’ and the ‘Regenerating Ilford: Delivery Prospectus’ which provides a spatial expression of the manifesto through a series of propositions to transform the town centre. The Delivery Prospectus acknowledges the changing nature of retail and the need to diversify the town centre offer to accommodate the needs of a growing residential community, emphasising the need for a strong cultural core.

Early engagement with a range of workspace providers, and local stakeholders helped to shape proposals for the five-year meanwhile projects. Following a competitive process Mercato Metropolitano and SPACE Studios were successful in putting forward their vision and business plans for the Town Hall car park and the Town Hall building.

The new Cultural Quarter is envisaged to bring together civic, leisure, education and community uses and boost cultural activity during the day and evening. In advance of longer-term plans, the council is using the opportunity to enhance its existing cultural offer and firmly establish creative and cultural enterprise by re-purposing a part of the Grade II listed Town Hall and the car park to the rear of the building.

At the core of this project, the Town Hall will be adapted to provide a mix of affordable workspace and artist studios, alongside flexible public spaces for art and tech-inspired community activities. The car park will be transformed into a purpose-built covered market, enabling start up and food entrepreneurs to establish and grow. Importantly, this incorporated circular economy principles of lightweight construction and design for disassembly and reuse - significantly reducing environmental impacts.

The Town Hall has already been transformed to provide 35 studios that support a wide range of artists, an offer which continued during the pandemic. The presence of the artists and SPACE Ilford has already begun to change the perceptions of the cultural offer in the town centre.

The Ilford Market project will create a food market with a community growing space on the roof and encourage social, community shared activities like growing, cooking and eating. The building itself is largely constructed in timber which, as a low embodied carbon and natural material, makes it sustainable and thus much better for the environment than steel and concrete. Other innovative technologies, such as generating gas from waste with an on-site digester and providing adjustable feet instead of foundations, have allowed this substantial project to be delivered at a fraction of the usual budgets.

Further collaboration between the Spark partners and the local community will continue to support the transformation of Ilford into a hotbed of artistic and entrepreneurial endeavour, growing the local economy both day and night.

The Regeneration team encourages and shapes growth in London’s town centres, economic centres and high streets by supporting project partners such as local authorities, community groups and business groups, collaborating closely on delivering regeneration projects across London.

The Challenge is supported by GLA’s Economic Development, Culture and Creative Industries and 24hr London teams as we seek to support recovery and resilience of both the everyday and more emerging aspects of the economy and creative sector. Existing investments and support offers include Night Time Enterprise Zones and Creative Enterprise Zones, the Culture at Risk Office, the Community Spaces at Risk Fund, the London Business Hub and the recently announced Resilience Fund.

Local recovery strategies will need to interface with and can benefit from an understanding of Transport for London’s ongoing and direct capital investment to improve streets across London making them safer and more welcoming for walking and cycling, which allows equitable access to local high streets (through for example the Liveable Neighbourhoods programme, and the programme of temporary interventions made in response to the public health issues arising from the pandemic). TfL also directly contributes to the vitality and viability of high streets through lettings policies that promote affordability and a diversity of businesses.

The GLA’s Planning team – through the London Plan, Local Plan conformity, planning frameworks, guidance, referable applications and evidence will continue to play a co-ordinating role, ensuring development and policy is informed by data-driven evidence, guided by the Good Growth approach set out in the London Plan.

The GLA’s Environment team will support challenge exemplars to pilot low-carbon and circular economy neighbourhoods and to adapt our high streets to a new and changing climate e.g. sustainable drainage, biodiversity, public access to green space, planting more trees. Of particular focus will be the environment team’s proposed ‘2030 Future Neighbourhoods’ the integration of Healthy Streets principles (air quality and improving access to and quality of green spaces) and supporting the proposed Healthy Food Neighbourhoods.

Challenge exemplars will also receive the support of GLA’s Communities and Social Policy (CSP) unit. This includes insight from the Social Integration Design Lab, diversity action planning and thinking on social value creation and community wealth. CSP resources including the Mayor’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Advisory Group and the social evidence base will support exemplar development and delivery.

The High Streets for All Mission Advocates Group brings together expertise of key partners in the areas of innovation, town centre management, property, culture, heritage, participation and the built environment to help steer the mission to enable the successful restructure of high streets to be able to serve the needs of their communities.

London Councils represents and works on behalf of London’s 32 boroughs and the City of London by acting as a catalyst for effective sharing among boroughs.

The High Streets Task Force is an alliance of place making experts working to redefine the high street and supports communities and local government to transform their high streets.

The Centre for Collective Intelligence Design at Nesta explores how to combine diverse groups of people, novel sources of data and digital technologies (including AI) to solve social problems. It does this through a combination of research, policy and running experiments and programmes with public and third sector partners.

The Mayor’s Design Advocates is a group of 50 built environment practitioners supporting the Good Growth by Design programme to ensure regeneration projects deliver quality buildings and public spaces that will enrich London’s communities now and in the future.

High Streets and Town Centres - Adaptive

Strategies (GLA 2020)
The Mayor’s High Streets and Town Centres - Adaptive Strategies guidance advocated a ‘mission-orientated’ approach to the challenges high streets and town centres face and a related development of local partnerships and 'adaptive strategies’ for high street renewal and diversification.

Good Growth by Design Recovery Roundtables (GLA 2020)

As part of the Good Growth by Design programme, we held a series of Recovery Roundtables to discuss the most pertinent topics facing London’s built environment in the wake of the global health crisis and its ensuing social and economic impacts. Mayor’s Design Advocates and other external experts have offered their perspectives on the impact of the pandemic, the relevance of existing Good Growth by Design guidance in this new context, and examples of best practice that London could be learning from.

24-Hour London

The Mayor has created the 24-Hour London programme to help London plan for the night (6pm to 6am), in the same way it plans for the day. Useful resources include:

• Night Time Strategy Guidance: Case studies, precedents and a step-by-step process to develop a night time strategy. A special document offers guidance to help the night time economy recover from COVID-19
• London At Night: A major collection of data and insights on London at night – including transport, workforce, economy, culture, safety and wellbeing
• Night Time Data Observatory: A library of various night time data sets designed to help boroughs develop night time strategies
• From Good Night to Great Night: the Mayor’s vision for the development of London between 6pm and 6am
• Think Night: London’s Neighbourhoods from 6pm to 6am: The final report and ten recommendations of the London Night Time Commission

Creative Enterprise Zones

Creative Enterprise Zones can play an integral role in supporting an approach to high streets and town centre recovery. Their role is to support artists and creative businesses to access permanent affordable space to work; enable them to start-up and grow; and ensure that local people can learn creative sector skills and find new jobs. They have been in delivery since 2018, developing innovative policies linking affordable creative workspace, business and skills support with community leadership. GLA support for this cohort extends to June 2023.

Culture at Risk Office

The Mayor’s Culture at Risk Office has a remit to safeguard cultural and community infrastructure across London. The office provides bespoke support to operators, businesses, social enterprises, charities, non-profits and community groups to help protect at-risk assets and to support their long-term sustainability.

Cultural Infrastructure Map

The Cultural Infrastructure Map is an open resource which plots the location of cultural infrastructure and enables the user to view it alongside useful contextual data, like transport networks and population growth.

Useful resources

• Map of Community Views: Insights from BAME and Faith communities disproportionately impacted by Covid-19, presented by the GLA.
• The Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm: The Borough Working Group is an opportunity for borough councils to provide views from across the capital. Get in touch with your council to find out more about their involvement.

Precedents

Every One Every Day is a programme in Barking and Dagenham led by the Participatory City Foundation to empower local residents to work together on different neighbourhood projects around the borough to make everyday life better for everyone.

Seen and Heard is a research and engagement project commissioned by the Brent 2020 London Borough of Culture programme where young people have teamed up with LSE Cities to create the Blueprint Charter, a new manifesto for public spaces, and the Seen and Heard petition.

Making Happy Places is a summer school where 18 to 21-year olds learn about architecture and the environment, gain practical skills and develop a critical eye on how the built environment impacts on the lives of local communities.

High Street Tweak is a project led and delivered by the Edinburgh Futures Institute and New Practice that explores how residents, businesses and young people can work together to develop ideas for small improvements to help make high streets more successful and liveable places.

Useful resources

• The Mayor’s Expanding London’s Public Realm research and design guidance assists commissioners and built environment professionals to ensure the highest levels of access and inclusion in an increasingly dense city.
• The Safer Streets guidance from IF:DO, Innovate UK and Street Space outlines creative ways the public realm can support both the recovery and resilience of high streets.
• The TfL Healthy Streets toolkit helps you put the Healthy Streets approach into practice, covering the whole process from initial assessment, through implementation, to evaluation.
• The High Streets Taskforce outlines a ten-point checklist for Temporary public realm changes.
• Reinventing the High Street for COVID-19 Recovery by Sustrans explores the ways in which redesigning high street spaces can help recovery.

Precedents

The Future High Streets Fund and Heritage Action Zone programme for Woolwich High Street is a comprehensive plan of works including works to reboot Beresford Square market, deliver cultural events promoting local history and diversity and make improvements to the public realm.

The SHEDx project in Kingston reimagines the public realm greening, the development of a community farm, a local food & craft market, a Brazilian Festival, a new community unit and more.

Her Barking by Street Space and Hanna Benihoud is a women-led co-design movement to test low-cost interventions to make streets and space feel safe.

The Living Innovation Zones project in San Francisco invites the community to help shape the public realm.

The Passeig De St Joan Boulevard project in Barcelona transforms a major city road to give priority to pedestrians.

Useful Resources

• The London Business Hub is supporting London's businesses to start, sustain and grow.
• London Councils’ summary of borough digital initiatives shows how the London Office of Technology and Innovation can help to solve problems, improve services, and foster community engagement.
• The Local Government Association’s Dealing with Empty Shops guide is for councils faced with challenges around vacancy on their high streets and provides an overview of potential methods to tackle it.
• Deloitte’s What next for the High Street report argues that the high street is ideally placed to reinvent itself in response to the structural shift in working and shopping patterns that has resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Alternative Camden is a new take on an innovation district, set up to give people the freedom to create a more democratic and inclusive city.
• Thirty3 is a city-wide platform for technology-focussed public sector procurement with the aim of diversifying London’s tech infrastructure, improving services for Londoners and helping public bodies save money.
• Commissioned by the GLA and the LEAP following the advice of the Mayor’ s Workspace Advisory Group, Architecture 00 have produced the Flexible Workspaces on our High Streets guidance for empty high street premises ranging from large public-sector owned assets and shopping centre units to large retail space in the Central Activities Zone and small high street units. It calls for a reimagination of the relationships between landlords, tenants, operators, and local authorities, with the purpose of reducing the risk profile of vacant units, while ensuring that high street assets create social and economic value by providing space for local business and enterprises of all sizes.

Precedents

The Night Time Enterprise Zone Report brings together findings, the action plan and case studies from the Walthamstow High Street pilot project.

Catford DEK studios in Lewisham bring life back into the old town hall in Catford, providing much needed affordable, flexible and creative workspace for artists and designers.

Bracknell Forest Council’s East Hampstead Works combines affordable workspace for businesses, with flexible, adaptable studio and events spaces.

The Startup Mall in Hammersmith offers formally vacant units within the mall to entrepreneurs, makers and technologists who want to test new ideas.

First in Tolworth is a new community market and proposed Hybrid Business Improvement District to that enables businesses and residents to work together to improve their local area.

The Hackney Wick and Fish Island Creative Enterprise Zone has recently delivered a Makers’ Market helping makers engage with the local community whilst boosting their profile and driving additional footfall.

Useful resources

• Saving the High Street: the Community Takeover published by Power to Change and the London School of Economics and Political Science explores how community businesses can help revive the high street’s fortunes.
• Social Value Metrics – this pulls together some of the existing guidance as well as tools and datasets that allow you to monetise social impact. This is particularly important if you are looking to agree KPIs for your own organisation or set up reward mechanisms for partners delivering social value.
• The Community Improvement District Discussion Paper published by Power to Change explores the emerging concept of Community Improvement Districts and considers the considers the various models, contexts and risk factors.
• Hackney Council has developed the Business Toolkit to encourage the adoption of social values by all businesses in the borough.
• The Social Value Portal is an online tool to help organisations measure, manage and report their social impact.
• Common Wealth have pulled together Democratic by Design: A New Community Wealth Building Vision for the British Economy After Covid-19. This sets out core principles, signposts key research and best practice from across the UK.

Precedents

Sutton Works will transform a former department store into an innovative workspace providing co-working, offices for local SMEs, business support, exhibition space and community facilities.

Newham Council has developed a Community Wealth Building Strategy that engages with local anchor institutions to increase local spend, as well as providing support to local businesses to tender for contract opportunities.

The Harlesden High Street Heritage Action Zone includes a project led by the Refugee Support Network, to transform a disused former bank into a focus of support for young people, workspace for small businesses, and a meeting place for community groups.

Liverpool City Region Combined Authority has launched England's first Land Commission focussed on community wealth building, to review how public land and assets can better deliver local social value.

Useful resources

• The Mayor’s Connective Social Infrastructure report presents research into the role of social infrastructure in enabling social integration, while supporting good growth.
• Social Integration in London: a snapshot of the Mayor’s approach shares insights from the Survey of Londoners on issues relating to social integration, equalities and fairness and how the Mayor is tackling these issues.
• The Value of People Power report by Nesta includes an economic analysis of the value of people power and explores how public services can better value the contribution of citizens.
• The London Community Response Survey dataset presents results of a weekly questionnaire sent to a cohort of frontline civil society organisations . The results are being used to inform the pan-London response to the coronavirus crisis.
• The Collective Intelligence Design Playbook by Nesta provides tools, tactics and methods to harness the power of people, data and technology.
• The NHS Confederation’s Health on the High Street report sets out we can seize the opportunity to address health inequalities, offer additional capacity for health service delivery and attract more people into their local high street, while encouraging healthier lifestyles.

Precedents

Redbridge Council’s Community Hubs Programme brings together different services across the borough such as libraries, children’s services and GPs, and provides a place where residents can come together and run activities that matter to them.

The Lions Society are a network of barbers in Croydon who use informal social infrastructure – barbers' shops – to provide mentoring and support to help young people move away from involvement in knife crime.

The Friendly Families Nursery in Deptford is a parent-led, co-operative model of childcare which actively involves both children and parents in every stage of creating the childcare setting.

As part of the Bourne Estate redevelopment in Camden, the Tenants and Residents’ Community Hall was relocated to a more prominent position, opening to a semi-public play and community space and creating a welcoming facility for all residents to use.

The Open Doors programme by ukactive and Sported, unlocks school sports facilities outside term time to provide vulnerable children and young people with safe and accessible spaces to engage in sports and physical activity, as well as mentoring and education.

Useful resources

• The Mayor’s Design for a Circular Economy Primer helps organisations in the built environment sector understand how they can embed circular economy principles into their projects and design processes.
• NLA – Zero Carbon London – insight into where the built environment sector is currently in the fight against climate change, and the measures to achieve this goal
• Climate Action: Race and climate reading list to help understand how race and climate intersect.
• Friends of the Earth: England's Green Space Gap Report – exposing green space deprivation in relation to ethnicity and location
• Hawkins\Brown: Emission Reduction Tool – an open source tool to analyse and visualise the embodied carbon emissions of different building components and materials options.
• Levitt Bernstein: Easi Guide to Passivhaus Design – a guide that graphically sets out ten simple principles that form the foundations of good Passivhaus and zero carbon design.
• LETI publications: Climate Emergency Design Guide and Embodied Carbon Primer – setting out a net zero carbon future and providing technical support
• Suggested organisations to follow – Climate Re-frame (amplifying BAME voices in the UK Climate Movement) and Race and Health

Precedents

The Arcola Theatre in Dalston is an example of a refurbishment of a run-down building into a community resource and cultural venue that is also zero carbon.

The Brixton Remakery is a place where people can come together and repair things, rescuing from landfill, saving money and preventing carbon emissions while also creating a social hub.

Croydon Council’s Shaping Thornton Heath: High Street Plan sets out a framework and practical projects, integrating green and blue infrastructure and sustainable development in a holistic vision for the town centre.

Rework in Wandsworth is a refurbish and reuse project by Groundwork, where repairable white goods are fixed up by trainees who are getting back into the workplace.

Think & Do Camden is a community space utilising underused buildings and spaces to allow people to reimagine what a circular economy, net-zero economy, and sustainable development goals look like in their area.