High Streets for All

Report launch hosted by LSE Cities, Mayor’s Office at the Greater London Authority and We Made That

‘High Streets for All’ was a research study commissioned by the Mayor of London and authored by We Made That and LSE Cities. The study took one of the most commonplace experiences of the city – the high street – and used the perspective of Londoners to understand its diverse economic, social and environmental benefits, collectively known as its ‘social value’. This methodology built on the LSE Cities’ Super-diverse Streets research project, led by Suzanne Hall, Cities Programme Director. Together with existing knowledge and new primary research, the study used this evidence to set out the strategic case for advocacy, intervention and investment in London’s high streets.

Jules Pipe, London’s Deputy Mayor for Planning, Regeneration and Skills, introduced the report, which was followed by a presentation of the study findings. A panel discussion around the themes of social value, diversity and inclusion, supporting local businesses, measuring social impact of regeneration and what good growth could mean for London’s high streets followed.

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Profiles

    Jules Pipe

    Jules Pipe, Deputy Mayor, Planning, Regeneration and Skills, is working on key priorities for the Mayor, including: major regeneration projects across the capital, providing young people with skills for their future careers, ensuring London’s infrastructure needs are delivered to benefit all Londoners, and leading on revising the London Plan. Jules has unrivalled knowledge of London government, becoming the first directly elected mayor of Hackney in 2002 and serving as Chair of London Councils since June 2010.

    Ricky Burdett

    Ricky Burdett is Professor of Urban Studies at the London School of Economics (LSE), and director of LSE Cities and the Urban Age project. He is a member of the Mayor of London’s Cultural Leadership Board, and was chief advisor on Architecture and Urbanism for the London 2012 Olympics and architectural advisor to the Mayor of London from 2001 to 2006. He was director of the International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale in 2006. With Deyan Sudjic he is co-editor of The Endless City (2007) and Living in the Endless City (2011) and, with Philipp Rode Shaping Cities in an Urban Age (2018).

    Dan Ebanks

    Dan is a co-founder and CEO of the Social Value Exchange, an online auction that uses the Social Value Act to get more money into community projects. Before that he worked for a number of government focused consultancies, ranging from boutique practices to global firms. Dan's seen how community organisations can be the lifeblood of local communities: a priority for the Social Value Exchange is to help these organisations continue to provide valuable services for people who depend on them.

    Suzanne Hall

    Suzanne Hall is an urban ethnographer and has practised as an architect in South Africa. Her research and teaching interests focus on everyday formations of global migration in the context of inequality, discrimination and resistance, particularly migrant economies and urban multi-culture. From 1997 to 2003 her practice engaged with the role of design in marginalised and racially segregated areas in Cape Town. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including the 2006 Venice Architectural Biennale, and the 2005 Sao Paulo Biennale of Architecture and Design. She was awarded an ESRC Future Research Leaders grant (2015–2017) for a comparative project on ‘Super-diverse Streets: Economies and spaces of urban migration in UK Cities’, which emerges out of her LSE Cities research project on ‘Ordinary Streets’. She is a recipient of an LSE Teaching Award (2017), the Phillip Leverhulme Prize (2017), the LSE’s Robert McKenzie PhD Prize (2010), and the Rome Scholarship in Architecture (1998–1999). Suzi is author of City, Street and Citizen (2012), and The SAGE Handbook of the 21st Century City, co-edited with Ricky Burdett (2017).

    Jim Hubbard

    Jim Hubbard is Policy Adviser for Local Engagement, Property and Planning at the British Retail Consortium where he leads policy work on devolving powers, transformational change to retail property and the future of high streets. He has developed a guide to help retailers navigate the devolution of powers in England and to find opportunities for local engagement. Specific policy areas include business rates, Local Enterprise Partnerships, Business Improvement Districts, commercial leases and energy management of buildings. Before joining the BRC he worked on local growth and regeneration policy at the Royal Town Planning Institute where he authored reports including Creating Economically Successful Places and Fostering Growth. Jim earned an MSc from University College London in Sustainable Urbanism.

    Debbie Jackson

    Debbie is the Assistant Director of Regeneration at the Greater London Authority.  She has responsibility for delivering high quality and targeted regeneration programmes with a range of partners to maximise cultural, economic, social and environmental benefits, leverage and impact.  Across Debbie's programmes she is responsible for a budget of over £400m. Debbie has worked in London's public sector for nearly 20 years and in Regeneration for 12 years.  In Debbie's early career at the City of Westminster she was involved in service delivery in street environment, letting London's largest waste and highways contracts.  At Westminster and also in her subsequent role as Head of Physical Regeneration at Lambeth Council, Debbie was also responsible for innovative projects that leveraged value from public sector assets to realise regeneration outcomes.  Debbie joined London government in 2009.

    Holly Lewis

    Holly Lewis is a registered architect who co-founded We Made That in 2006. She has led a unique range of urban projects for the practice, from pioneering industrial intensification work through to comprehensive high street regeneration projects. Holly also leads the research portfolio of the practice, which has included studies of local economies and placemaking across London. She was shortlisted for the AJ Emerging Woman Architect of the Year Award 2012. She is a CABE Built Environment Expert and recently appointed as a Mayor’s Design Advocate.