It's basically a really pleasant place to visit now. Rather than going to the mall for a coffee, people stay in the community, which strengthens it as we get to know each other, and also the money stays in the community too.
Re free parking every situation is different: eg our street is a busy road and a bus route. Nearly all the parking is metered. What would help us would be for there to be more short stay (eg 20 mins) free spots so that the people driving through could stop off and pick up bits of groceries, a newspaper or a takeaway.
Our association is putting together a neighbourhood plan to try to manage regeneration the way the community want, rather than the way the Council thinks we want, or a developer wants. It's been used as a good example case study in the Portas report...
The report is very good; acknowledges many small businesses are badly run or haven't adapted their business model.
Plenty of good work going on in Hackney. I do a lot of work with the Hackney Parochial Charities and hear many good stories.