Ever since standing as a councillor many residents in East Dulwich have been very clear that they agree we should ensure our shopping streets don’t become clone zones.

The New Economics Forum have come up with a method to measure this.

This methodology involve counting the number of independent stores versus the number of shops and the different types of shops.

We’ve surveyed Lordship Lane northern main shopping area, Lordship Lane around Dulwich Library and Grove Vale. The measures is that areas 0-50 are called Clone Towns, 50-65 Border Towns and 65-100 Home Towns.

Lordship Lane (northern/main area) = 73 — largely affected by estate agents

Lordship Lane (Dulwich library area) = 75

Grove Vale = 78 — but vitality affected by number of takeaways.

Walworth Road = 61

To make Lordship Lane more of a Home Town we’d need more variety of shopping – we don’t have electronics, sports/cycling store, music/games. We also have a very large number of chain estate agents and food stores.

We’ll be using these survey results to inform the Dulwich planning bible currently being prepared.

What do you think would help preserve and increase the shopping vitality of Lordship Lane?