Wealthy suburbs becoming ‘clone towns’

12 April 2012

Richmond has London's most "boring" high street with just five independent traders surviving amid the chain stores, a report says today.

The study found many of the wealthier suburbs of west and south London are losing the battle against "cloning," while edgier urban districts such as Shoreditch and Stoke Newington are fighting back with rising numbers of small independent shops.

The findings came in the second Clone Town report from the New Economics Foundation. The think tank first warned that local charm and character was being eradicated from Britain's high streets by identikit chain stores five years ago.

The new survey of 30 London high streets found 13 qualified as "clone towns", 15 were "home towns" with a good selection of independent traders, and two were borderline. It concluded that "west London's high street are losing their identity more rapidly than other parts of London".

Richmond had the worst score. The next most cloned were East Putney, Hammersmith, Clapham, Hampstead and Wimbledon. Brentford was an exception, scoring the highest rating for diversity.

The NEF said its success was partly down to a decision by councillors, residents and local businesses in 2007 to promote regeneration of its high street.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in