What is the nature and scale of the crisis and why are some streets and centres doing better or worse than others. What can be done about it?  We discussed these and related issues at this Open Meeting on 26th March.

London’s town centres have had a challenging decade – changing planning policies, growing on-line sales, COVID, vacant shops and rising costs. They are in transition, but are they going in the right direction? How can we maintain their vitality? How do we make them more attractive and a focus for our communities?

Since 2005 – the year when the first five London Business Improvement Districts were founded – there has been a rapid growth in the number of BIDs. Town centres businesses join together to increase the competitiveness of their centre. Can they deliver better outcomes for our communities?

London’s nightlife – pubs, clubs, music venues – has been under pressure, with premises closing and rising costs. The Mayor wants to support and grow London’s vital night-time industries. How might this affect our communities?

This Open Meeting reviewed:

• What has happened to London’s town centres/high streets?
  Speaker: Dr Steven Norris, National Head of Planning, Regeneration + Infrastructure, Lambert Smith Hampton
• The growth and impact of Business Improvement Districts
  Speaker: Alexander Jan, Chair: Central District Alliance & Hatton Garden BID
• Protecting, retaining and growing London’s Nightlife
  Speakers: Sam Mathys, Senior Policy Officer, and Marsha Kuye, Strategic Programme Lead for 24-hour London, GLA

Meeting Record

For those that were unable to attend in person, audio and video recordings of the first part of the meeting are provided below, which include Q&A after the speakers.

Meeting Summary

Introduction

The Open Meeting brought together four main speakers and a lively audience to address whether London’s high streets and town centres are in crisis — and what can be done about it. Three thematic sessions covered structural challenges and opportunities in town centres; the growth, impact and limitations of Business Improvement Districts (BIDs); and the Mayor of London’s emerging agenda for the nighttime economy and licensing reform.

Session 1: Town Centres — Challenges and Opportunities (Dr Steven Norris, Lambert Smith Hampton)

Steve Norris opened by painting a picture of the seismic pressures facing UK high streets. A “perfect storm” of rising occupancy costs, the growth of online retail (now accounting for 27% of sales, having risen from 1% at the start of the millennium and peaking at 38% during the pandemic), the pandemic itself, and global economic pressures have resulted in significantly more shops closing than opening. National high street vacancy stands at around 14%, and shopping centres fare worse, averaging 18–19%. His firm’s research found that of the UK’s 500 largest shopping centres, 12% are not fit for purpose and need wholesale replacement, 40% require major repurposing, and only 5% need no significant intervention.

He identified the key challenges as business rates, rising occupancy costs, national insurance contributions, local authority financial constraints, and poor town centre environments. A recurring theme in his firm’s annual survey with Revo is that between 20–39% of retail space in town centres is no longer fit for purpose.

However, Dr Norris was clear that the picture is not uniformly bleak. He highlighted a range of transformative responses: former Debenhams stores being repurposed for go-karting, life sciences, and new homes; Community Diagnostic Centres opening in vacant shopping units (now delivering over 9 million additional health screenings since 2021); and large-scale regeneration schemes at Elephant and Castle (500 new homes, 30+ new shops, a new town square), Wood Green (6,000 new homes, 4,000 new jobs), and Brent Cross Cricklewood (6,700 new homes, 21 acres of public realm). Outside London, he pointed to the demolition of Stockport’s Castlegate Centre — once 40% vacant — to make way for a new riverside park, and to Altrincham’s market-led revival from having the worst high street in Britain to a model for national replication.

Markets emerged as a consistent bright spot, generating average footfall increases of 25% and encouraging 70% of visitors to spend in nearby businesses. London examples cited included Columbia Road, Brixton Village, and Hackney’s night markets.

On funding and leadership, Dr Norris was clear that no single actor can lead regeneration alone. Public-private joint ventures remain the preferred delivery model, though the previous government’s capital funds (Future High Streets Fund, Levelling Up Fund) have been wound down. The successor “Pride in Place” programme — a £6bn commitment over 10 years across 300 deprived areas — now includes several London boroughs including Barking and Dagenham, Brent, Croydon, and Haringey. Dr Norris cautioned that funding alone is insufficient: robust master plans, long-term vision, and genuine community involvement are essential.

Audience questions pressed on the tension between housing targets and the need to preserve commercial uses, the threat to businesses in railway arches from rent rises by TfL and Network Rail, and the particular challenges of small historic high streets like Highgate, divided across two boroughs.

Session 2: Business Improvement Districts (Alexander Jan, Central District Alliance and Hatton Garden BIDs)

Alexander Jan traced the origins of BIDs from a 1970 initiative in Bloor West Village, Ontario, through to their UK legislative introduction in 2004. There are now around 340 BIDs in the UK, 76 in London, generating approximately £60m annually. Around half of London’s BIDs are within the Central Activity Zone; the other half operate in outer borough high streets and industrial estates, typically with more modest budgets of £50,000–£200,000 per year.

Jan argued that BIDs fill a genuine gap created by decades of local authority spending cuts — real-terms spending per person having fallen by 28% since 2010, with the vast majority of remaining council budgets absorbed by adult social care and special educational needs. He noted the paradox that a business paying £1m in business rates might see only £20,000–30,000 of that spent on visible improvements in their area, with most of it redistributed centrally — a consequence of Mrs Thatcher’s nationalisation of business rates, since perpetuated by all subsequent governments.

BIDs’ strengths, he argued, include their speed of action, convening power, democratic legitimacy (through five-yearly ballots), grassroots expertise, and ability to raise and spend money locally. He gave concrete examples from his own BIDs: major public realm investment at Princes Circus off Shaftesbury Avenue; Christmas lighting and street cleaning in Hatton Garden; and a new programme of paying for police overtime to increase visible uniformed presence.

He was candid about the challenges: awareness and recognition remain low; there are genuine tensions between business interests and residents (though he argued these are often overstated); BIDs are increasingly filling public service gaps rather than providing genuine additionality; and it can be hard to demonstrate economic impact.

Audience questions probed the conflict between resident and business interests on busy high streets like Kensington; the failed Hampstead BID renewal; and differences between the UK and New York models (New York BIDs are perpetual, owner-led, and more heavily regulated by city government, UK are paid for by a mandatory 1-2% levy on business rates for eligible businesses in a defined area, once the ballot is voted for, or renewed).

Session 3: London’s Nighttime Economy and Licensing Reform (Sam Mathys and Marsha Kuye, GLA)

Sam Mathys opened by emphasising that the crisis in nightlife is about viability, not demand — footfall in many areas has returned to pre-COVID levels, but venues operate on margins of less than 1% in central London, squeezed by energy costs, business rates, and the general cost of living. She noted a generational shift: the 18–24 age group is going out less (linked to cost of living), and 40% of 18–25 year olds now do not drink alcohol at all.

She framed nightlife broadly — the GLA now defines it as all social or cultural activity between 6pm and 6am, not just alcohol-driven venues — and argued that this broader definition opens up opportunities to fill vacant high street units with community-driven leisure: social clubs, group activities, alcohol-free spaces, and night markets. Diversification, she stressed, is essential to a healthy high street.

The Mayor’s Nightlife Taskforce report, published earlier in 2026, generated several commitments: a new independent Nightlife Commission representing the whole sector; a Nightlife Future Fund targeted at innovative operators and underrepresented entrepreneurs (details to be announced later in 2026); and a streamlined “meanwhile use” process to speed up the activation of vacant units.

Marsha Kuye then outlined the parallel licensing reform project, noting that — in a piece of live news from that very evening — the relevant legislation had cleared the House of Lords without a vote. The London Strategic Licensing Policy, out for consultation (closing midnight the following day), aims to create a simpler, more consistent licensing system across London’s 33 boroughs. New powers will include the GLA becoming a “responsible authority” under the 2003 Licensing Act, a duty on licensing authorities to consult the Mayor, and a mayoral call-in power for applications of strategic importance. A “London Licensing Playbook” — to be co-designed with all stakeholders including residents — will set higher operational standards for venues.

Audience questions ranged widely: the difficulty of enforcing licence conditions when councils lack resources; the conflict between promoting housing in town centres and enabling nightlife (with Dalston cited as a successful example of coexistence); the problem of alcohol availability and antisocial behaviour in areas like Catford; the rise of delivery mopeds on high streets (acknowledged as out of scope for the nightlife project); the transfer of premises licences to new operators who change the style of operation; and cumulative impact policies. Marsha Kuye confirmed that residents’ associations would have representation on the Licensing Playbook’s strategic advisory group — a role the London Forum was suggested to consider taking on.

Overall Themes

Across all three sessions, several threads recurred: the need to move beyond retail monoculture towards genuinely mixed-use centres; the importance of long-term, patient funding rather than short-term grant programmes; the essential role of communities and residents — not just businesses and local authorities — in shaping the future of their high streets; and the particular pressures created by central government’s stranglehold on local taxation and spending. The meeting closed on a constructive note, with the chair urging attendees to see current reforms as genuine opportunities for community influence.