03 Feb Shaping Economic Recovery in West London

We launched our Build and Recover plan – our economic recovery strategy for West London – back in September 2020 in response to analysis showing the colossal economic impact of the pandemic on our communities across the seven boroughs. The plan sets out our aspirations to make the most of the opportunity to ‘build back better’ by taking a place-based approach, and working, with the public and private sector across West London and London more widely, on shared goals to:

• Protect and create thousands of good jobs
• Secure better alignment of existing public sector funds and attract new private and public sector investment
• Understand and address inequalities
• Provide timely and good quality employment support and skills provision
• Drive innovation and embed a green recovery
• Revive the UK economy as a key part of London’s overall contribution

Notwithstanding the second wave of the pandemic and the uncertainty that has brought, we have made good progress on various strands of the strategy since its launch, detailed below:

Growth Sectors
The concept of a West London Innovation District concept is gaining traction. We are looking at how best to build on established clusters of innovation such as those around White City with emerging thinking for an aviation and logistics focused innovation district approach around Heathrow and more widely – as part of scoping the broader West London Innovation District concept.

Skills and Employment
Working through our appointed provider, Shaw Trust, we made a strong start to the £12m Job Entry Targeted Support (JETS) scheme to help people out of work for more than three months back into employment. 1100 unemployed west London residents have now started on the programme, and we are aiming to support up to 9,000 throughout this year.

We have been working across boroughs to shape a ‘single front door’ approach to the skills and employment system, establishing a set of shared principles.

Putting some of this joint working into practice, employment support providers and boroughs have been working together to provide local recruits for the NHS mass vaccination centres. Some 1,700 referrals to NHS mass vaccination roles have been made through this joint working, setting firm foundations for longer term work with the NHS on local recruitment models.

We’re also on the verge of completing work to develop an online tool to improve our understanding of demand and supply of skills to help inform delivery of skills provision in line with employers’ needs.

Green recovery: As a central focus of our work to foster a green recovery, West London boroughs secured the largest grant in England from the BEIS Green Homes Grant Local Authority Delivery scheme to support retrofitting of private rented sector homes. The £4.7m grant will help to retrofit 700 homes, with a further bid for an additional £14.5m submitted to increase the numbers of homes retrofitted by 1,200.

We’re also looking how best to tie in our aspirations to support growth sectors with innovation in the green economy, considering retrofitting, last mile decarbonisation and the circular economy as potential areas of focus.

Aviation communities: Led by WLA member Borough Hounslow, a well attended Aviation Communities Conference was held in November, helping to secure media coverage for our proposed Aviation Communities Fund. This fund would support communities affected by the impact of the pandemic on aviation, and sectors allied to it.

Housing and infrastructure: Our longstanding work to progress the West London Orbital has become increasingly important. Working in partnership with TfL on the benefits has highlighted that as well as boosting connectivity across west London, this project will make a significant socio-economic contribution to the sub-region, especially across housing and jobs. The next step is a public consultation which will help us to better understand the requirements of residents and businesses along the route.

Entrepreneurs and micro-businesses: In addition to our boroughs’ focus on administering grants to businesses locally, we are also now exploring the potential to build on best practice in small business support as a model for West London covering, for example, business diagnostics, accredited advice and guidance, and the consistency of advice provided.

Working with partners across West London, London more widely and in central government, we are keen to build on progress so far and ensure that the Build and Recover plan provides the foundations to ensure we ‘build back better’ and ensure an inclusive economic recovery for all our communities.

For more information, please contact David Pack, Head of Economy and Skills: PackD@ealing.gov.uk