High Streets for All

What is this mission about?

The High Streets for All mission aims to deliver enhanced public spaces and exciting new uses for underused high street buildings in every borough by 2025, working with London’s diverse communities.

Why are we doing this?

London’s high streets are a focal point for our culture, communities and everyday economies.

Before COVID-19, London’s high streets were already under a lot of pressure.

The pandemic has impacted some communities more than others. It revealed how important it is that we rebalance the use of our local places to provide the necessary services that our communities need, within a short walking distance and at all times of the day.

If we don’t act now, London is at risk of losing the variety of businesses, organisations and local services that make our local areas unique and serve our diverse communities. The High Streets for All mission will support high streets and town centres to adapt and diversify. 

To recover from the economic, social and health impacts of the pandemic, City Hall has set out a missions-based approach. This will bring together the public, private and voluntary sectors, and involves working with all Londoners to make it a success.

We propose to achieve this mission by engaging with local people, supporting the creation of partnerships and a culture of ideas and invention across the city.

This will enable us to deliver high streets projects in every borough. We will provide funding opportunities, tools and expert advice, and share best practice.

We will be focusing on:

• bringing empty and underused buildings and spaces into use
• promoting local employment and near-home working
• protecting existing community and cultural spaces
• introducing new types of business and civic organisations.

We will continue to lobby for a fair share of government resources to be available for London’s high streets and town centres.  

Mayoral investments will be used to support local economic recovery objectives, especially in housing and transport. 

Short-term actions:

• The Mayor has pledged almost £500,000 to 39 creative and innovative community-led crowdfunding campaigns through his Make London programme for projects that will help local neighbourhoods across London recover from the COVID-19 crisis. Projects range from an urban farm in Greenwich tackling local food insecurity and waste to the transformation of a vacant high street post office in Poplar into a shared workshop for craft and training involving young people. See a list of the projects supported to date.
• Boosting Community Business London, delivered in partnership with Power to Change and Co-operatives UK, has awarded 10 development grants to organisations looking to set up and operate as community businesses with local impact and benefit as their focus. Organisations supported span a range of types and themes – including community land trusts (CLTs) delivering infill housing, a social enterprise urban farming operation, and groups looking to secure and transform at-risk pubs and community centres into spaces for community benefit and/or ownership. More information about Boosting Community Business London.
• The High Streets for All Challenge launched in March 2021. It invited local partnerships to respond to the challenges faced by high streets and town centres by developing innovative approaches for local streets and vacant and underused buildings and spaces. 
• The Good Growth Fund Accelerator provides grant funding to councils to support the delivery of nine projects across London. The projects will be delivered in partnership with local organisations and funding will support recovery, regenerate town centres and improve high streets
• The High Streets Data Service and Data Partnership launched in June 2021. It brings together essential information about the economic and social health of high streets and town centres. The service aligns with the work to support London’s recovery from the coronavirus pandemic by sharing footfall and spend data with boroughs, as well as cultural, environmental, planning and business information, and specialist analysis. 

Policy team

Mission co-chairs:   

• Sarah Cary (London Borough of Enfield) and Louise Duggan (GLA)
• Policy leads: Jamie Dean and James Parkinson (GLA)

Led by locally defined partnerships – involving property interests, businesses, diverse community groups and local anchor institutions, supported by London borough councils, London Councils and the GLA Group and a newly formed multisector / diverse interest advocates group.