In the latest copy of Lewisham Life I noticed an interesting article about shops having a makeover in New Cross as part of the 'New Deal For Communities (NDC) initiative.
22 shops around New Cross were restored in total including cleaning brickwork, structural work, restoring original features and replacing shop fronts and signs.
Seems like it pays off as the owner of the new Hardware Centre at 117 New Cross Road said "the appearance of the building is much improved and trade as picked up by 35-40%".
What if...
SHOPS MAKEOVER
Re: SHOPS MAKEOVER
The shop fronts are absolutely dreadful in about 50% of cases, the high street has been dug up for over 14 months, no-one sweeps the pavements, no washer trucks ever come through to clear the gutters, crap is still piling up by the Wesley Hall, the litter bins are still damaged, the municipal signage is bent and needs replacing, the greyhound is still derelict and £15K is about to be spaffed on a mosaic.
Councillor Best, do you think this is acceptable?
Councillor Best, do you think this is acceptable?
-
blue&whitewizard1991
- Posts: 46
- Joined: 23 Jul 2008 18:32
- Location: Lawrie Park Road
NDC's are relatively very well funded regeneration partnerships, and such a scheme will not have been cheap. I agree with the basic premise of the post, in that the high street looks very rough round the edges, however suggesting this is a local authority issue is missing the point.
NDC's are about funding demonstrator projects to encourage other stakeholder public or private to do things differently. In this case the project is clearly about demonstrating to small business owners that investing in their own business boosts trade. This lesson applies to small business owners anywhere, including sydenham. Let's not bash local councillors. There simply isn't the money in the public sector to pay for such an initiative. (I'll qualify this by adding the mosaic appears a real waste of money).
NDC's are about funding demonstrator projects to encourage other stakeholder public or private to do things differently. In this case the project is clearly about demonstrating to small business owners that investing in their own business boosts trade. This lesson applies to small business owners anywhere, including sydenham. Let's not bash local councillors. There simply isn't the money in the public sector to pay for such an initiative. (I'll qualify this by adding the mosaic appears a real waste of money).
-
Robin Orton
- Posts: 3380
- Joined: 9 Sep 2008 07:30
- Location: London SE26
Is the high street having a re-vamp - pedestrian areas extended and some local shop signage being included - or is that incorrect?
It seems that most of the information I read about is based around regenerating the station area, the areas around the Sydenham library seem to be forgotten even though it's still part of Sydenham - if a whole area isn't considered how is the regeneration of this area truly going to happen? For example - the buildings opposite the catholic church (between Highclere and Sunnydene) are left to run down, without the council putting pressure on whatever housing association is running them. Also there is a beautiful building (next to the Wesley church) which has been left to decay - that could be turned into a fanatic community venue/arts centre - it has a huge garden area which could be developed into a play area and car park....the possibilities are endless. There are numerous funding streams that could be applied for, for community initiatives. It could be even made into a cinema!!
How do local businesses apply for the NDC grant? Could this be something that could be brought up at a council meeting. I realise that the economic climate has created a deficit in the local authority spend, however, I think that Sydenham is a great place to live and it deserves the investment!
It seems that most of the information I read about is based around regenerating the station area, the areas around the Sydenham library seem to be forgotten even though it's still part of Sydenham - if a whole area isn't considered how is the regeneration of this area truly going to happen? For example - the buildings opposite the catholic church (between Highclere and Sunnydene) are left to run down, without the council putting pressure on whatever housing association is running them. Also there is a beautiful building (next to the Wesley church) which has been left to decay - that could be turned into a fanatic community venue/arts centre - it has a huge garden area which could be developed into a play area and car park....the possibilities are endless. There are numerous funding streams that could be applied for, for community initiatives. It could be even made into a cinema!!
How do local businesses apply for the NDC grant? Could this be something that could be brought up at a council meeting. I realise that the economic climate has created a deficit in the local authority spend, however, I think that Sydenham is a great place to live and it deserves the investment!
-
blue&whitewizard1991
- Posts: 46
- Joined: 23 Jul 2008 18:32
- Location: Lawrie Park Road
NDC grants are small area based funding programmes, there are 39 across the country based in select Local Authoirty areas that suffer from high levels of deprivation. There are 10 across London but there can only ever be one NDC area in each host borough and Lewisham's is in New Cross. They are prevented from spending money outside of that geography, so it is not something that Sydenhamites can get there hands on.
[/quote]
[/quote]
Thanks B&W.
Having driven down the high street tonight I found it really depressing. Jays Opticians has a new big brother cyclops eye sign which looks horrible which is looking directly across the road at the hairdressers (I still have no idea what it's called) which also has a new sign which is beyond horrible.
Such a shame that no-one has learnt from places like inspire beauty, sugahill or blue mountain and really thought about their kerb appeal.
Quite a few shops have had new signage recently and in almost every instance it looks worse than it did before. The ones that don't look worse look so similar to the previous sign you wonder why they even bothered spending the money.
It is really detrimental to the perception of the whole street, both for customers and new investors.
Having driven down the high street tonight I found it really depressing. Jays Opticians has a new big brother cyclops eye sign which looks horrible which is looking directly across the road at the hairdressers (I still have no idea what it's called) which also has a new sign which is beyond horrible.
Such a shame that no-one has learnt from places like inspire beauty, sugahill or blue mountain and really thought about their kerb appeal.
Quite a few shops have had new signage recently and in almost every instance it looks worse than it did before. The ones that don't look worse look so similar to the previous sign you wonder why they even bothered spending the money.
It is really detrimental to the perception of the whole street, both for customers and new investors.