Town Centres up and down the UK are struggling.

Vacancy rates in retail premises are at an all time high, and stories of ‘the wrong kind’ of shops – pound shops and bookmakers – lowering the tone of neighbourhoods and acting as anti-social behaviour magnets abound.

Against this national backdrop, our West London town centres could be said to be doing rather well. Certainly the vacancy rates are more like 10% than the 40% you can see in some northern towns. However, complacency is the enemy of continued prosperity, and presumably it is in this spirit that the Greater London Assembly has challenged London’s towns to up their game.

The report they have issued says that town centres must change from being primarily shopping destinations to become "dynamic and mixed centres for communities offering a range of retail, leisure, public services and housing”. To put it simply, town centres aren’t just for shopping.

A prime mover in the decimation of many high streets is the growth in internet retailing. As people switch to the convenience and variety of online shopping, there are less purchases in high street stores.

Many smaller retailers, facing the twin pressures of the internet and larger stores selling the same goods at lower prices, find it all too much, and pack up and go home when the lease comes up for renewal. Many would also cite parking charges, and over-zealous parking enforcement, as a major deterrent to passing trade.

But let’s get back to the thrust of the report. It harks back to the days when high streets and town centres were less for shopping, and more for congregation. In places this still happens. In Barcelona, La Rambla is a social event of a Sunday afternoon, as families stroll up and down bumping in to friends in a way that hasn’t happened for 50 years on King Street.

Town centres grew up where people met – at places where major routes intersected, rivers had to be crossed, or where people would break a long journey. Once they were established as meeting places, entrepreneurs starting setting up to sell goods and services – food, drink, and accommodation, then clothes, financial services, and so on.

Mixed in with the retail were the basic services – post, local government, library, dentist, doctor, community centre, labour exchange – which are now largely gone from the modern version of the high street.

It is these that the GLA report suggests should return or be strengthened. These are the sorts of service that would allow pensioners to make the weekly journey to collect their stamp, then pause for conversation with an old friend. They would have parents bringing toddlers through to visit a health clinic, or families attending a public event.

These aspects of life – more to do with congregation than commerce – are those that make us a society. These are the things which make us human, and which have, sadly, been written out of the high street story over the last couple of decades as post offices were sold off, doctors moved to polyclinics, and libraries merged.

The GLA report argues that these non-retail functions are vital to the health of the high street. Certainly without them, a high street is just shopping. And shopping is easier on the net.

Ross Sturley is the content director for Place West London, the sub-regional economic development summit on October 22. A discussion of West London town centres and their strategies for growth will form part of the event. To learn more visit www.placewestlondon.com .