One of the borough’s main town centres, Hackney Central boasts an historic high street along Mare Street and the Narrow Way – and in recent years has welcomed new workspaces, businesses, and a bustling nightlife.

While Hackney Central is a busy town centre, some shops and commercial spaces sit empty. And although the area has a brilliant range of shops and businesses, they can suffer from poor connections across the town centre and public spaces that don’t fill their potential.

Thousands of people took part in the Hackney Central Conversation and helped create the Hackney Central Town Centre Strategy. You identified priorities including:

• supporting the diverse range of shops and businesses
• keeping larger anchor stores that help make it a destination
• reconnecting different parts of the town centre
• ensuring that the town centre has a good mix of uses that meet the needs of the local community.

Based on your feedback, we’re supporting markets at Bohemia Place and the Narrow Way, working with the landlords of vacant town centre buildings to ensure empty spaces and shops back into use, and improving public spaces to increase town centre footfall, help businesses and improve community safety.

We’ll also explore opportunities to use Council owned buildings in different ways and work with building owners to breathe new life into empty or underused buildings – making sure that the town centre has a good mix of uses that meet the needs of the local community.

This will support our mission for Hackney Central, created in partnership with the local community, to encourage a sustainable and inclusive economy in Hackney Central, which provides opportunities for local people and businesses.