Place

A place for everyone

• You visit your town and local centres mostly for restaurants, pubs and shopping in the evenings (6pm – midnight)
• Pubs are the main reason for visiting town and local centres in the late night (midnight - 6am)
• You asked for more culture, especially music venues and outdoor performances
• Businesses at night mostly cater to the younger, more affluent section of the community
• Need to celebrate the magic of community and cultural spaces across the borough with more activities and events
• Need more youth clubs, sports facilities and safe places where young people can spend time during the evening
• Need a wider range of later opening businesses, not just surrounding alcohol, to activate streets for safety and help local economy prosper

Design our centres for the night

• A lot of shop windows are dark or have shutters down at night and create dark patches
• Disused spaces, empty units and railway arches should be used where possible
• More creative and warm street lights wanted, with better colours

Parks and open spaces

• Many people are scared of using parks at night  
• More outdoor spaces wanted for the community to use in the evenings
• Businesses, residents and visitors have welcomed the pedestrianisation of streets in the borough
• Businesses outside of pedestrianised zones felt left out and would like to be included in creative solutions for attracting footfall too 
• The river is underused and could connect better to the night time econom

A place for everyone - encouraging people out

• A range of evening and night-time uses on high streets beyond just eating and drinking, tying into the 15-minute neighbourhood approach with consideration of impact on existing residents
• Ensure uses on offer at night respond to the needs of the whole community, including activities for young and old people, people with disabilities, and families to enjoy the night-time together
• Continued engagement with residents (including young people, LGBTQI+, ethnic minorities, older people), local businesses, workers and visitors to the high streets to understand what they would like to see improved in the night-time
• Engage with businesses and relevant organisations to improve provision for night workers such as healthy food options that are open later, evening childcare i.e. night nurseries or in-house crèches, and places to rest
• Implement free USB points for charging phones across town centres in safe spaces such as street furniture, bus stops and transport interchanges
• Investigate toilet provision including accessible toilet locations and work with venues to address public urination issues
• Evening and night-time social hubs that are inviting to intergenerational communities
• Review the borough’s estates at night and work with residents to implement interventions that improve night-time conditions in problematic locations

Design our centres for the night

• Consider the design and use of pedestrianised streets and spaces into the night after dark and during the winter through lighting, shelters and spill-out space
• Promote active frontages at night with consideration to residents, using sustainable lighting and colourful shutters to animate high streets when shops are closed, especially in dark areas and corners where more than two consecutive units are shut
• Work with owners of vacant units to introduce temporary and permanent solutions such as exhibitions and installations either inside or on their frontage to help animate streets at night
• Encourage public art in town centres such as outdoor murals and installations, working with the community to create more attractive, safer places and provide a sense of ownership

Parks and open spaces

• Police to direct more surveillance to parks at night
• Encourage walking and cycling routes through parks to increase activity at night and help with perception of safety
• Lighting used strategically with consideration to biodiversity
• Introduce amenities that encourage residents, older people, people with disabilities and young people to use parks and open spaces, such as more seating, food markets, dog owner events and skate parks.
• Provide support for people with mental health difficulties and rough sleepers that spend time in parks at night
• Local and town centres should have flexible open space, such as that of Granary Square in Kings Cross, potentially with shelters, that can accommodate a range of ad hoc uses for the community of all ages to meet at night
• Encourage the use of the Thames riverfront for walking

Culture and art

• Develop an affordable or free night-time programme of events, both indoors and outdoors, for each town centre with local businesses, musicians, artists, young people, and community groups, delivered annually
• Engage with creatives and improve licensing policies to enable independent individuals to put on events at night
• Pilot night markets that create a destination for the evening and night-time when high street stores close, in collaboration with residents
• Support night-time activities or events through heritage and night trails that tell stories of the borough at night, connecting our Town and Local Centres, and utilising the river Thames as an asset
• Outdoor exhibitions, interactive artworks and murals on undesired paths and walkways or development hoardingst

Creative lighting

• In line with the Council’s Walking and Cycling Strategy, produce a Lighting Strategy (to be considered in future Planning Permission for development schemes) that recommends placement and type of lighting across the borough to create safe and inclusive places, informed by appropriate guidance on the impacts of lighting on biodiversity
• Ensure the lowest energy lighting is used, timed and / or motion-detected where appropriate, and the Lighting Strategy complies with Wandsworth’s Environment and Sustainability Strategy (2019-2030)
• Identify locations for design solutions and/or improved lighting such as underpasses, alleyways, dark spots and gateways to the centres
• Creative use of lighting in the public realm to animate streets and transform spaces with particular attention to those that feel hostile. For example through use of bead lights on trees, up-lighting of buildings, light projections and temporal lighting etc.
• The use of warm lighting is encouraged over harsh lighting to reduce negative perceptions of safety rather than flood lights that look like a deterrent and reinforce perception of danger
• Consider using light to create a positive presence of buildings that are closed at night such as cultural, civic, religious and educational facilities, and businesses, as well as landmarks/li>
• Design in shields, baffles and louvres to ensure light does not shine into homes, which is already used for traffic lights to mitigate light from flooding homes

Architecture and public realm

• Consider producing Supplementary Planning Guidance to ensure ground floor architecture and public realm design is informed by, and enhances the night-time experience, with facade design that transitions seamlessly into the night
• Development proposals to prepare strategies that provide flexible, well-designed and adaptable spaces for commercial and community night-time uses
• Encourage weather-proof outdoor performance and gathering spaces to be designed into new developments with consideration of residents
• Avoid dark corners and narrow pavements in consideration of safety at night
• Ensure women and other user groups are consulted on significant placemaking design proposals to encourage gender equity at night