Southwark’s College Ward Councillors, Kim, Lewis and Michelle support small shops that serve the local community. Many small shops in College Ward provide a vital lifeline to residents who cannot get to East Dulwich easily due to bad public transport links.

We have successfully obtained funding from the Council and Section 106 agreements to carry out improvements to the forecourts of the Lordship Lane shopping parade opposite the Harvester Pub. The works will involve replacing the forecourts with a new surface and removing some of the redundant ’street clutter’, at no cost to the local shop occupiers. This will make the Parade more attractive and safer to use and works are set to start soon.

On the Kingswood Estate Shopping Parade we have obtained funding for ‘Alert Boxes’ so shopkeepers can warn each other about potential trouble and issue a distress call. We are also working closely with Kingswood Estate residents on a project to bring back into use some of the disused shop units and open a ‘Community Shop’.

London has lost over 7,000 individual or family owned business in the last six years. As your local councillors we are working to regenerate local shopping parades, give local businesses every opportunity to succeed, and make Dulwich a better place to live.