The owner of the Green Spot Cafe at 403 Hither Green Lane shares her #BestIdeasforCorbett

Late last year, we surveyed the shops and businesses on the Corbett Estate London to ask them what they would do to drive Catford South and Hither Green regeneration.

With the help of the research team at ImaginePlaces, we visited all seven of the Corbett Estate’s ‘neighbourhood centres’ at Springbank Road, Hither Green Lane Central Market Parade, Brownhill Road/St Mildred’s Road Centre, Verdant Lane, Torridon & Sandhurst Roads, Ardgowan, Torridon and Dowanhill Roads and Sandhurst Market Parade, and Muirkirk and Sangley Roads (find a Corbett Estate map here).

Support your local shops on the Corbett Estate

These ‘neighbourhood centres’, precious shopping parades and friendly clusters of businesses, cafes, restaurants and public services like the much-loved Torridon Road Library, are what give our area character and a sense of community as well as local shopping convenience. We wanted to find out how we could help support and preserve them.

Here’s what our local businesspeople said

The Corbett Estate’s shop-owners and small businesses came up with some brilliant (and sometimes surprising) suggestions for the Corbett Estate SE6 – you can meet them, find out what they said and join the discussion here, in our innovative forum, designed by local digital success story Stickyworld (don’t worry, it’s super-easy to navigate and comment).

The comments, concerns and solutions proposed there will eventually be fed into the Corbett Estate’s Neighbourhood Plan (you can read more about it here).

Our top five challenges

ImaginePlaces and the Society identified Catford shops to let and Hither Green shops for sale or to rent, and pinpointed five main challenges facing Catford South and Hither Green community centre(s):

• Retail, service or employment properties becoming residential (often thanks to very unattractive design)
• Maintaining the breadth and quality of shops and services
• Better short-term parking for cars and bikes, and better upkeep of pavements and street furniture
• Regularly kept opening hours for shops and businesses
• Some general TLC for the Corbett Estate’s shopping parades, perhaps via a regular market or specialization, so that local people regard them as a valuable resource

But the discussion isn’t over yet. What do you think is the biggest problem facing the Corbett Estate’s business community?

Have your say by visiting the Stickyworld room, by emailing us at info@thecorbettsociety.org.uk, or by visiting us on Twitter and Facebook.