Window dressing?

Yesterday I reported on how the Conservatives were commissioning a year long study into whether there's pollution in Putney High Street (somewhat akin to a study into whether there's water in the Thames, if you ask me) with the stated purpose of funding some "environmental theatre".

Today, they've unveiled their long awaited local economic stimulus. It is - wait for it - to pay landlords of empty shop units to display pretty pictures of the borough! I kid you not - in a news release boldly headlined "Council tackling vacant shops" they say:

"In Wandsworth Town Centre the council will offer grants of up to £1000 for vacant shops to install window dressings displaying attractive images of the local environment."

They go onto highlight another radical, decisive plan:

"The council is also investigating a pilot project in Tooting where a community mural could be painted on a bricked-up shopping parade."

Note: not to get the bricked-up shopping parade unbricked and back into use growing our local economy, but to make it look a little less bricked-up. This isn't action - it's (literally) window dressing.

The third and final intervention the Conservatives are pondering is to use shop front windows as "art exhibition spaces".

At least they'll have somewhere to perform their environmental theatre.