14 Oct West London Build and Recover Strategy: October Update

The colossal economic impact of COVID-19 is continuing to have a disproportionate impact on West London. As of September 2020, 8.1% of London residents were claiming benefits compared to 6.5% across the UK. In West London this equates to 77,500 extra claimants compared to September last year and the position is set to worsen when the furlough scheme ends this month. As of July 2020, there were over 363,000 people across the WLA boroughs on furlough; more than a quarter of London’s total. Analysis by Oxford Economics projects a decline in GVA in West London of between 9% and 14% in 2020 with more than 40,000 people losing jobs this year.

Over the summer, the seven WLA Boroughs (Brent, Barnet, Ealing, Hammersmith & Fulham, Hillingdon, Harrow and Hounslow) created a bold and ambitious plan to drive economic recovery to limit the damage to our communities and businesses who are in need of help and support. This shared determination and commitment culminated in the publication of our ‘Build and Recover’ Strategy in September which we discussed with leading business representative at the Capital West London ‘Build and Recover’ Summit at the end of last month.

We are grateful for the support we have received from across West London, especially from the private, public and voluntary sector organisations who have joined our newly established Economic Recovery Task Force to help shape and implement the plan. Welcome and thank you.

There are three key themes within the Strategy that will help us, in the immediate term, to protect jobs and maximise opportunities for employment: Skills and employment, Entrepreneurs and micro-businesses and Aviation communities.

We are engaging with West London MPs and other key stakeholders to help us to make the case to Government for providing investment, enabling flexibility in the use of funding, allowing policy flexibility and introducing new powers for local authorities. For example, we want to:

• Expand the Skills Escalator programme to meet current and future demand, focusing more on helping people to up-skill in order to move into new roles in viable sectors.
• Develop the Work and Heath programme even further, beyond the expansion announced earlier this week, to help as many people as possible into employment.
• Use the Apprenticeship Levy to fund training and skills for micro-businesses.
• Create an Aviation Communities Fund specifically to help those who rely on the aviation industry.

West London may be amongst the areas of the UK hardest hit by the crisis, but it also has the greatest opportunity to re-bound. There are solutions and with the right support from central Government we can ‘build back better’.

Read the full ‘Build and Recover’ Strategy