Lewisham has been awarded more than £500,000 to revitalise and reinvent the high street.

The Mayor of London's High Street Fund awarded more than £543,000 for projects to transform Ladywell Leisure Centre on Lewisham High Street and for cultural improvements in Forest Hill.

At the Ladywell Leisure Centre, over £543,000 will fund a new enterprise hub on the ground floor of a new housing development.

The hub will provide a co-working space to promote the growth of start-ups, entrepeneurs and existing businesses, primarily working in the creative, digital media, business and social enterprise sectors.

Lewisham deputy mayor and cabinet member for growth and regeneration, Councillor Alan Smith, said that this is great news for Lewisham

He added: "We have one of the highest percentages of micro businesses in the country, and the direction we need to be in is to encourage these micro businesses to become larger businesses and the enterprise hubs are part of this.

"We have a very entrepeneurial population. There just seems to be a buzz in the area.

"People want to get on with it and the addition of funding can help them."

In Forest Hill, £113,000 of funding will help with public space improvement on Dartmouth Road and will be used to develop a cultural strategy to make several council-owned building in the heart of Forest Hill a key feature of the place.

Mayor of London Boris Johnson said: "The imagination, enterprise and creativity of Londoners has shone through in the array of ideas put forward to the High Street Fund.

"London's high streets are no longer about retail alone and I am thrilled to be supporting projects that seek to diversify and unlock opportunities in our most prized urban assets."