Lewisham is the emerging growth borough for the Creative and Digital Industry in London.
71%
GROWTH IN CREATIVE/DIGITAL INDUSTRIES IN 5 YEARS
£500,000
FROM THE LONDON MAYOR TOWARDS A CREATIVE ENTERPRISE ZONE
2
KEY STRATEGIC INDUSTRIAL LOCATIONS
“Lewisham’s retail offer is being regenerated as it aims to become a metropolitan centre.”
SHAPESLewisham – Creative Enterprise Zone
The creative sector provides one in six jobs in London and is growing faster than any other sector in the UK economy. The Creative Enterprise Zone (CEZ) initiative aims to provide investment and support for creative businesses in the capital, ensuring that London remains one of the most entrepreneurial and innovative business centres in the world. This new initiative aims to: protect the creative sector across the capital; increase affordable spaces for artists and entrepreneurs, and boost job and training opportunities for local people.
Lewisham was one of 25 boroughs to apply for CEZ funding and was chosen as one of the six winning zones. Our Creative Enterprise Zone aims to better connect and amplify our creative community and support creative businesses to develop stronger roots and more sustainable practices. It considers affordable and appropriate workspace alongside access to the skills, expertise, facilities and connections of our incredible education and cultural institutions and seeks to embed development policies within the local plan and business rates alongside identifying how the council’s existing assets can help the sector to thrive.
We seek to think and do differently: enabling talent from across the Borough to access pathways to participation and then employment in the creative industries; opening up the expertise and facilities of our educational and cultural institutions toward much more purposeful creative knowledge exchange; testing new types of collaborative practice to ignite the innovation potential of the creative industries.
Through close engagement with research, innovation and entrepreneurship provision from Goldsmiths, aligned with our commitment to building sustainable production hubs and exchange platforms which connect our diverse talent base to creative employment, our creative sector can become one of the most innovative and productive in London. If we can better connect the different elements of our creative ecosystem, we have the opportunity to establish our Creative Enterprise Zone as the most compelling education, creative and social milieu in London.
Retail
The retail sector includes the two major town centres of Lewisham and Catford, seven district centres, two out of centre retail parks, five neighbourhood centres and over 80 local shopping parades. In Lewisham Town Centre, Lewisham Shopping Centre has trusted urban high street brands Marks & Spencer, Costa, Next, JD Sports, Virgin Media, Vodafone, Carphone Warehouse and Orange. The centre is also being regenerated as Lewisham town centre aims to become a metropolitan centre.
Commercial
Lewisham has relatively affordable rental values compared to London. Only 3 per cent of industrial and 5 per cent of office space are currently vacant which poses a challenge in providing space for some business sectors at all stages of their development.
Convoys Wharf in Deptford is a key development site that will provide new commercial, retail and business space along with culture and leisure facilities. Accompanying this will be 3,500 new homes, restored public access to Lewisham’s riverfront for the first time in 500 years, the protection of a Scheduled Ancient Monument and restoration of the listed Olympia Building. A new bus route connecting to Deptford train station and a new river-bus jetty connecting to Canary Wharf are also part of the plans. The redevelopment of Convoys Wharf will generate thousands of employment and training opportunities, with developer Hutchison Property Group contributing £500,000 towards local training and employment initiatives. When complete, the development will provide over 2,000 full time jobs and Phase 1 of construction will create up to 1,200 jobs.
The A2 Corridor Study will look at how industrial and protected employment land can be used most effectively, and how the public realm around it can it be improved to open up routeways for all users.
Industrial
Lewisham has two key strategic industrial locations: Surrey Canal Road Bromley Road. The Surrey Canal Road area contains valuable industrial and warehousing businesses, as well as a waste handling facility for the whole of Lewisham; the South East London Combined Heat and Power Station. Bromley Road is different in character from the Surrey Canal Location, in that its general industrial development is largely confined to car repair and servicing, and to one large laundry facility. It is the largest single tract of dedicated employment land in the south of the Borough.
