The growing threat from supermarkets and giant shopping centres means the position of our treasured high streets featuring your local butcher, baker and greengrocer is becoming increasingly precarious.

Yet there are forces working in the borough to nurture and promote these delicate businesses which make our towns so unique.

Richmond, Twickenham and Whitton town centres have managers who are paid to fight their corners. But Teddington, St Margarets and East Sheen have representatives who give up their own time to help promote their businesses.

These representatives joined forces for the first time about a year ago and have been going from strength to strength ever since.

There are 10,000 businesses in the borough, and 2,000 of these work with these managers, which makes the partnership the largest single organisation for local businesses.

The group's first major victory came last month when Richmond upon Thames Council announced they would no longer charge it to close the roads twice a year to hold special events.

In the past this could cost the town centres up £600 a year for events they were often holding to raise money for charity. This has been welcomed as very good news and the groups are very grateful.

St Margarets representative Simon Chapman explains: "It means that we can take part in the Twickenham Festival for the first time.

"It is great that we will be able to take place in such a big event. These are so enjoyed by residents and visitors in the borough. We use them to raise money for charity and schools, but it costs a lot to put on and a significant part of the money went to the council. It is only by us all working together that we have achieved this."

Twickenham town centre manager Esther Warboys adds: "The change reflects how we are now working together. The council is actually looking at what they can do to help us."

Richmond Council director of the environment Trevor Pugh said the move was a goodwill gesture: "Up until now we had to charge for additional costs such as road closures. We realised that these events are an important part of borough life. We thought that it would be a positive move, especially as it was not a large amount of money in terms of the council, " he says.

These special events, such as the annual Twickenham Festival, the Christmas events in the town centres are crucial to promoting local business.

"It promotes the areas and all of the specialist shops we offer. We want people to discover what we have to offer on their doorstep," Teddington representative Kim Jones said.

"When we held the River festival last year, with D-Day events, Marks & Spencer had their busiest day of trading and the Volvo garage sold three cars. People then came back the following week and business was really good."

Links with the council have been increasing during the past year. Trevor Pugh said there is a real connection with the work of the town centre managers and his work in the environment department.

"During the last year we have been working to try and make the borough a more attractive place for visitors, residents and businesses. Work to improve the street scene with more cleaning, a crackdown on fly-tipping and graffiti are basic issues which affect everyone."

The council is launching a new scheme in April called to enhance this further, Mr Pugh said.

"We will have 20 officers dedicated to each area in the borough taking an overview, meaning they will find it easier to know who to go to. They will provide a single contact link for the town centre manager and it should make their life a lot easier."

"We will ask what the priorities are in any given area. Quite often the council can think they know what the issues are in an area are, but often it is not until we are actually in there that we get the full picture."

The council is also looking to improve the toilet scheme and wants to get 50 businesses signed up across the borough and promote it more.

So, after a flying start, what does the group hope to achieve in the future?

Esther Warboys said: "We need a vision for the town centres. It is not set down anywhere at the moment what we would like the town centre to be like in five years time. If we do not have a cumulative impact policy and we look at every application on its own merits, there is a danger the town centre will become one big bar and restaurant in that time. It may be that is fine and people are happy with that but we do need to work to come up with a strategy."

Kim Jones adds: "In Teddington, there are seven charity shops in 100 yards of each other. We are looking to work with the council to see if there are any ways of stopping that from happening if we have this right in a month's time, then it will have a cumulative effect."

The town centres are facing competition from supermarkets and from Kingston which has been designated a business improvement zone, meaning that thousands of pounds is to be spent improving the town centre.

Protecting the unique village atmosphere is key to the traders association in St Margarets. "We want to ensure it is an area with shops which the residents can be proud.

"We also work to help the area in other ways," said Simon Chapman. So far events have raised more than £7,000 for St Stephen's Junior School and Orleans Infant School.

"Teddington is currently divided by an ugly railway bridge. We want to do something to spruce that up, maybe with lighting and get the two ends of the town working together," Kim Jones says.

Whitton town centre manager Sally Sutton says the aim is to promote a customer centred environment.

"We are trying to stop people from saying where's Whitton,'" she says.

"We want to encourage people to shop here as they will get better customer service as businesses put in more effort to look after them."

Whatever the future holds for the borough's town centres, it is clear that working as a team can only be good for business.