High Streets for All

There are so many carparks that are closed or have no access to them any more. Business and communities should be able to 'take back' these spaces for community projects (local business markets, urban farming etc.) rather than to sit empty.

As a business owner, I'd like to see more inter-community support from greening projects. Yes, we can put insect gardens on bus stop shelters, plant wildflowers on verges etc. But this isn't anything new, we need a fund that can be allocated to such projects - using local business, local, jobs, local knowledge sharing. The opportunities are endless. The access to the space to make it happen, is extremely limited.

Another part of this is for wider support for small business who need to invest in their operations. Being sustainable is prohibitively costly, so why not reduce those costs by making the investments more common place. To do this, we have to rethink that a property is 'retail' for instance and think how it could be retrofitted to suit a local business.

Afterall, small business are held back by exactly this, and why so many move out of London. Just as they're paying employees, larger taxes etc. Totally preventable - that growth should be here in London!