West London has high-growth businesses, great transport links and brownfield sites ripe for development. No wonder it’s top of the Mayor’s list for investment, says Peter Mason
We are at a tipping point for London’s economy. We need more homes, but equally, we also need the jobs and economic growth that will allow people to afford those homes and thrive, rather than simply surviving. To achieve this, we must move the needle on London’s established pattern of economic growth, and encourage development and investment outside of zone 1 and in areas that have the most growth potential. And instead of further pooling economic growth into a limited number of markets in limited places in our city, London must play its part in service to the rest of the nation.
West London works
It was therefore pleasing, but not surprising, to see West London near the top of the Mayor’s ‘London Growth Plan’ agenda, published on Thursday, which identified it as an area primed for major growth and investment through areas like Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC) and the Westtech Corridor that will attract investment of global significance.
Research recently completed by independent think tank Centre for London also backs this up, finding that West London already has a significantly strong economy that is capable of supporting major further growth – with a gross value added (GVA) of £70bn, which is larger than Leeds and Manchester combined. It also found that business growth in West London is outstripping that within Central London by more than 3:1, helped by many transport links including the Elizabeth line, the diversity of complementary and growing industries working in close proximity to one another, and Heathrow Airport.
West London is also home to high-growth sectors, including science, innovation and green industry, manufacturing, transport and logistics, supporting a balanced, diverse workforce. The emergence of the WestTech Corridor, a vibrant new innovation system, has created a new cluster of investment and growth alongside the already existing creative industry cluster at Old Oak, and the aviation tech cluster around Heathrow. This along with OPDC, the largest regeneration project in the UK since the 2012 London Olympics, will support the delivery of 3.5m sqm of new employment space, prioritising growth in industrial and frontier innovation.
The Corridor specifically will support the UK in becoming globally competitive in innovation, with the White City Innovation District campus already experiencing an increase of deep tech businesses by 79 per cent between 2019 and 2023, with a rise in employees by 219 per cent.
Leveraging our growth potential
When it comes to the government’s ambitions and their key focus areas for growth and investment – brownfield land, investment in science and innovation, in geographic areas of economic strength, and enabling better use of industrial spaces – they might as well be describing West London. We have all of those, including 38.5 per cent of London’s brownfield sites and over eight times the amount of industrial space compared with Central London. For brownfield sites, this presents an opportunity to align with the government’s newly updated NPPF and their focus on developing on brownfield land first.
There are also large gains to be made from boosting West London’s economy more generally. Oxford Economics have found that if each sector was as productive as the London sector average, West London would contribute an additional £7.3 billion per year in GVA.
But achieving good growth in West London in line with the London Growth Plan and the government’s broader ambitions doesn’t mean investing in all of these areas, all at once, and at all costs. While the ambition and rhetoric around boosting housing supply is right, we must be alert to not inadvertently creating dormitory communities where people come merely to sleep, rather than to live. To mitigate this possible blind spot, we must enable more mixed-use development and attract investment in areas of real growth and strength specific to individual boroughs and areas, helping strengthen and create vibrant communities.
For Ealing, this means bringing well-paid jobs to the borough through the revival of our local shopping parades, the growth of our office and innovation corridor, leveraging OPDC, growing our creative and digital industries, and supporting our industrial estates. And as the borough delivering London’s newest Regional Park, we are ensuring that all future growth connects with everyday access to nature, green spaces, and wellbeing.
All parts of London can be as vibrant and dynamic as the heart of the city, and that starts with understanding what we are good at and where different areas are best placed to leverage their unique advantages.
To deliver this we need to grow all of our economies, in every part of London, and across the UK.
Peter Mason is leader of Ealing Council