We have been trying to get shop owners to use this film for ages. 3m make one, it's used in many buildings and they even do a bomb proof one.

There is also an anti graffiti film which is used on the underground. It has various layers (similar to the visor film they have on F1 cars) and peels off if it gets scratched or tagged.

We got quotes of about £60perm2 installed for the films, which is a lot less than security grills.

Security grills are around £1400-1600 for a 5.5m wide shop front. I've seen cheap ones installed, but I've also seen them fail. We looked into insurance, not all security shutters are insurance approved, even insurance approved ones don't make a difference to most shops insurance premiums (which is surprising).

What is even more surprising, is that it can actually cost more as some insurers ask for a separate insurance for security shutters in the even that they fail (one shop installed a cheap one, the gearbox failed and it slammed shut, narrowly missing a shoppers 5 year old daughter). Sometimes they refuse to open. They often go wrong and are expensive to fix and need maintenance and repair.

We work on a lot of high street schemes. One question we often ask is how many times a shops glass has been broken in the last 5 years. It's not as often in many cases as many people think (but it varies). Glass isn't that expensive. Billings window in Sydenham was about £500.

Unfortunately, there isn't much policing of shop fronts guidelines and planning and little enforcement. There just aren't the officers at the council to do the work. As such, arguably, planning doesn't really work for shop fronts and signage. We think there is a better way and put enforcement and communication in the hands of the local community, to work with shops and build individual communities with locally based planning incentives.