I’ve been working here for more than 15 years, today the high street infrastructure is okay but business has gone down, every day business goes down I don’t why. It’s changed a lot in 15 years – new buildings new people . In the past this market was the best market in the South East, now when you come on market day, its not that busy – before it was really hard to get a space – to get a license – now you can’t get people to take it, it’s probably a 50% reduction in stalls. I think one of the reasons is that before the parking used to be free and people can’t afford to pay for the parking. My customers are different too, it’s more diverse, you get a lot more white people now. Crime has also gone down, generally everything has improved – except business. I really think it’s down to the parking issue. But I have hope for the future that business will turn around.

I’ve been working here for 4 years but I was born in Deptford and moved away. The high street has lost a lot of shops, we used to have a Peacocks, a shoe shop, clothes shops – the butchers are still here but most of the shops are turning into hairdressers and they’re all the same – there’s no variety – and you haven’t got some of the old names anymore. It’s kind of dying but it’s also kind of arising again in a different kind of way.

I think someone needs to give it a good kick up the bum – someone needs to turn around and say we’ve got too many of this kind of shop, too may of that and we need to bring in something for everybody. There’s no where for kids to shop apart the sweet shop – and they can’t go to little Nans cause that’s a pub.

From the regeneration projects I’ve seen it’s all going to become very new looking, which is a bit sad since I like a bit of character in a building – so hopefully they won’t lose too much of the character and keep the history of the area in tact. Everybody who works in this area knows each other, the customers know each other, and I hope that that isn’t lost with all these new people moving to the area. Were not getting any new schools. Other places with a growing population are getting new schools but here I haven’t heard of any new schools being built – despite all the new housing and the new businesses – where are their kids going to be educated?

I’ve worked here for 10 years, what I would say about the high street is that it is very boring! It’s dead business wise and not very busy – it depends on the weather to an extent but even on days where you think it will be busy - it’s not. The infrastructure is better but the rising rent is a massive problem as is the competition. The businesses are cutthroat – they are all mixing together especially the food shops are trying to sell everything. They all try to copy each other as soon as they see one business taking off another opens, which leads there to being too many of the same type of shop particularly the fabric and household goods shops – they are all selling the same things.

The council is to blame for a lot of the problems here, anti-social behaviour is on the rise and they need to bring back the free car parking on Saturdays. The parking charge is putting customers off from visiting the area. Another big problem is the market traders – on market days we barely get any customers as they completely block the front of our shops and most people walk down the middle of the street without seeing us. At the end of the market there are loads of food stalls – why don’t they offer them to the local businesses? Maybe we should have a rota where restaurants and cafes already in the area can have access to a market stall. The council really needs to sort this out and it’s really affecting business – what are we paying council tax for?

We opened in May 2015, so we’ve been here almost 3 years. It has changed a lot since we moved here, obviously there is a lot of cafes and restaurants opening up by the station but it’s still a really nice place. I think it’s a nice mix of original shops, there’s a market 3 times a week which gives it its own flavour. We kind of feel like the old ones now cause it’s been changing so much. When we opened everyone was very welcoming, and it’s got a lot more diverse since then.

We have quiet a mix of customers, local people that come in, people who come in for the bikes, students, young couples that have moved to the area, mums – but it’s generally stayed the same since we opened. The only group we don’t really see is teenagers – but that’s probably because they don’t really go to cafes.

We chose to open the bike-café because it was an idea we had seen in other parts of the city and we decided to bring it to this area – there weren’t that many cafes like ours in the area when we first moved so we thought it was a bit of a gap in the market.

I’ve worked here since 2011, the area has changed a little for the better – before there was too any people hanging around the anchor.

The area has become better – everybody is more amicable, more understanding. Because of all the different nationalities you get to understand what you’ve got to accept, cause the British they accept different things to other people’s cultures – so how I look at it now is that it’s just a learning curve for everybody to understand all the different diversity that’s coming into place.

When we first came to Deptford we used to have a lot of drunks out there, a lot of people who used to cause a lot of trouble, but since they moved the anchor we don’t see them no more – it’s changed a lot – people can come in without fearing the drunks out there cause it used to bother people. In turn we do get a lot more clientele –they’ve put it back there now – but they haven’t put the wall there, so they haven’t got a reason to sit around. There was always fights out there and the ambulance used to come to pick up the drunks. It’s just not something you wanted children to see. They used to bother the customers as well, asking them for money, so people would be weary of going to the cash point. But now, there’s been a lot of changes in Deptford and they are doing a lot for the community.

However, the price of shops is ridiculous. If they kept it at average we could employ people from within the community – but we can’t do that right now because they keep putting it up – we don’t get any help – it’s really really difficult.

I think it’s important the council understand the effect of the changes, it’s all well and good that we accept change – but let that change be beneficial to us. What’s the point of making it so you have to get rid of the people already here that aren’t managing, just to then go and find new people – it doesn’t make sense. There’s only one way that everybody’s going to understand this is if we come together collectively and let them know that if they overdo it it’s just going to mess up everything that is here.

My only problem is the rent, apart form that I think it’s really nice here and I think that is the problem most people have – cause some of the shops are going because they can’t afford it. You’ve got to do like 3 businesses in one to make the rent, they’ll be selling clothes, they’ll be selling food – it’s absolutely ridiculous but they’re trying to make money and that’s what it’s all about. I think the government need to do more.