Survey of New Malden High Street Businesses

dnessy
Oct 21
6 min read

Background

The New Malden Town Centre Partnership was set up through the support of Kingston Council in 2022. It is made up of different groups and community organisations active in the area.

Its vision is to build on New Malden's strengths for it to be a vibrant, interesting, friendly and popular place to successfully provide a wide range of local shopping, service, leisure, recreation, arts, culture and business uses in an attractive, safe and convenient environment recognising and celebrating the cultural diversity of the town centre, and for it to be a focus for local community activities.

It Aims to work together with the local community, businesses and the Council, and reflect the cultural diversity and interests of the local community, to promote the attractiveness and use of the town centre.

The Town Centre Partnership actions involve:

Promoting community connections and footfall in the town centre by liaising with local groups and organisations on existing community events and developing a programme of events and activities for the new Town Square and other appropriate spaces and places;

Widening and further improving the range of uses and activities in the town centre;
Seeking opportunities for improvements for provision for local arts and culture
Working with the emerging New Malden Business Forum on ways to boost the attractiveness and trade of the town centre such as promoting its role as a multicultural eating and shopping destination;
Identifying improvements to town centre facilities and the physical environment including access and provision for people with disabilities;
Collaborating with the Council, public bodies and landowners on improvements to the town centre spaces and buildings;
Consulting and engaging with the local community and businesses to develop a project bank of potential improvements to promote and improve the town centre going forward; and
Working with the Council and other bodies to secure funding from various sources for improvements.

Working with the Council it has staged various community events on Jubilee Square which reflect the cultural diversity of New Malden. It has sought the enlivenment and improvement of the environment and identity of New Malden through a variety of ways including the commissioning of promotional banners in the High Street, installing festive lights in the street trees in the High Street, various works of public art involving different various sections of the community and age range including an intricate mosaic at the rail station, a mural on the multi storey car park overlooking Jubilee Square and a decorative floorscape on the Square.

From its inception the Partnership has vigorously sought to have an effective cross section of the community represented in defining aims and pursuing initiatives to achieve these. A vital part of supporting and promoting the High Street are the many and varied businesses in the High Street. Though a Business Forum was set up it lacked representation from High Street businesses. Therefore in order to try and identify ways in which to further promote the attractiveness of the High Street a questionnaire survey of High Street businesses was carried out by a group of members of the Partnership in the Spring of 2025.

The Survey

The questionnaire sought views on a wide range of issues regarding the environment and other matters relevant to trading in the High Street. The draft was pilot tested with a small group of businesses and amended in the light of these and comments from members of the Partnership.

One hundred and forty three front facing businesses were identified to be surveyed. These include a range of retail, service, food and drink and leisure uses. They are made up a number of national and more local multiples, a very significant amount of Korean businesses, primarily food and drink and various independents. This meant that different forms of approach had to be used reflecting the different forms of management structure and staffing in stores such as part time and daily changing staff. Therefore repeat visits had to be made to a large number of businesses explaining the purpose of the survey, identifying the appropriate contact to respond to the survey. The survey and questionnaire were publicised and made available on the Partnership's web site and businesses were encouraged to respond in this way if this was more convenient.

A lot of interest was shown in the questionnaire and views on issues were very much forthcoming. In total 49 responses were secured, a response rate of 34%. There was no particular pattern in the type of businesses that responded and responses were not made to all of the questions.

Key Points made in responses by businesses

There was an overwhelming positive response to the open ended question seeking views about the best things about running a business in the High Street with it being characterised as a friendly multi cultural place with a sense of community, with regular customers being often mentioned and a friendly and welcoming atmosphere. The area's history and distinct Korean and other cultural character of the area were also mentioned as positives.

An overwhelming proportion of responses (98%) considered that having community events was good for business.

The Council produces a regular electronic business support newsletter which nearly a third of the responses said that they received (31%). However, an extremely small proportion (7%) indicated that they had used any of the services offered.

In terms of what was considered as the most important problems/issues the clear most very important issue was insufficient car parking (mentioned by 33 of the responses); rents and not enough customers were the next most important issues (28 and 27); lack of police resource, anti-social behaviour and shoplifting were mentioned as being a very important issue by 25, 24 and 22 businesses respectively. Similar numbers of businesses stated that lack of publicity/promotion of the High Street (24); street cleaning (24) competition with online (24) business rates (23) were very important.

When combining the levels of importance of very important and important lack publicity/promotion of the High Street and insufficient car parking are the most frequently mentioned (44) followed by traffic congestion, street cleaning (43), not enough customers and business rates (42).

The questionnaire provided open ended opportunities for businesses to list any other issues and also to suggest what sort of improvements would be supported.

There were 14 and 29 responses respectively to these questions.

Overall there were no particular new themes emerging. The responses were primarily variations on the areas already covered by the survey questions but with a number of specific points raised such as whether A3 advertising boards on the pavements were allowed and a number of specific comments about car parking issues, anti social behaviour and crime and policing.

The responses to the question about what sort of improvements would be supported indicated a clear and frequently mentioned concern about crime and policing including shoplifting, anti social behaviour, police presence and support for introducing some form of technological alert and co-ordinating system or procedure by businesses as well as considering other measures.

Different points were raised about car parking such as why does the multi-storey car park only stay open to 4pm. Why is free parking outside of shops in Coombe Road limited to just 20 minutes, whereas 30 minutes is allowed in the High Street.

Other comments referred to pursuing initiatives to promote and attract visitors from further beyond its existing catchment area; more publicity and promotion of New Malden through different ways such as a dedicated web site, flyers, directory showcasing shops and services; concern about banking facilities. Support for promotions, such as a loyalty card scheme.

What are the most important problems/issues in trading in New Malden, listed by total combined important & very important

Conclusions

Overall the survey showed that the businesses that responded have a very positive view of the High Street as a pleasant, safe and community oriented place to trade. It highlighted a strong interest by a number of businesses to work together to address various issues such as promoting and publicising the High Street as well as issues such as car parking; not enough customers; making effective use of the business support services that the Council can provide; competition with online; shoplifting, anti social behaviour and policing. Nearly all businesses that responded thought that having community events was good for business.

This report will be made available on the Partnership's web site and the results will be fed back to businesses in the High Street, local councillors and the Council.

It is hoped that a meeting of interested businesses can be arranged and to share the findings and to establish whether they wish to set up a High Street business group to identify and pursue priorities to benefit the High Street.

New Malden Town Centre Partnership Steering Group

Email: connect@newmaldenpartnership.com https: //www.newmaldenpartnership.com/