Zac Goldsmith announced a £20 million fund today to revitalise London’s 600 high streets, as Sadiq Khan took his fight for City Hall to his Tory rival’s south-west London heartlands.
Mr Goldsmith’s plan includes a £2 million “stop and shop” fund to encourage councils to offer 30 minutes free parking to draw shoppers to town centres.
The mayoral hopeful would appoint a retail “czar” to promote regeneration and bring empty shops back to life, following a petition backed by almost 30,000 Londoners.
His plans build on work begun by Boris Johnson to help boost high streets, which are under threat from expensive rents and rates, out-of-town shopping centres and online shopping. It is funded in part from a £23 million underspend by the current Mayor.
There are thought to be more than 3,400 empty shops across the capital, mostly in outer London, with independent shops particularly at risk.
Mr Goldsmith, MP for Richmond Park, said: “London depends on the success of our local high streets and independent shops — they are the heart of our communities and the building blocks of the economy.”
It came as Mr Khan parked his tanks firmly on his rival’s lawn in a pitch for former Liberal Democrat voters in outer London boroughs. He will be highlighting Mr Goldsmith’s support for government cuts to help for disabled Londoners.
The Labour hopeful visited Kingston on Saturday and is expected to be in Sutton tomorrow. Voters in south-west London will be targeted with leaflets and a Facebook campaign.
The second-preference votes of the Lib-Dems, which numbered around 90,000 last time, could be key in the closely fought race.
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Labour believes that despite three Lib-Dem seats in south-west London falling to the Tories at the last election, voters are already moving away from them.
While there is little sign they are turning to Labour, Mr Khan’s campaign believes they are open to persuasion.
A Labour source said: “Voters in south-west London are abandoning the Tories over the ongoing Tory chaos.
"They are furious over cuts to support for disabled Londoners, the Tory civil war over Europe and David Cameron’s inadequate response to the steel crisis and the Panama Papers. There is particular anger at Goldsmith over his support for George Osborne’s cuts to disabled Londoners.”
A Lib-Dem spokesman said: “Labour’s performance in council by-elections in south-west London has been poor in seats won by the Lib-Dems. Local residents know that only the Lib-Dems can beat the Tories there, and Labour’s record shows nothing has changed.”
Meanwhile Boris Johnson has attacked the anti-Semitic “sickness” that was a “cancer” in Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour — and cast doubt over whether Mr Khan was capable of being a force for inclusiveness.
“That means emphatically not setting community against community,” he said. “That, alas, is not the Corbynista agenda,” he wrote in his newspaper column.
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