west side story webmagtvfeb10-1
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8/8/2019 West Side Story WebmagTVFeb10-1
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focus on heathrow & west london18
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE THAMES VALLEY FEBRUARY 2010www.businessmag.co.uk
The next time you rail into Paddington
or drive the M4 or M40 you might like to
consider this. The six London Boroughs
of Brent, Ealing, Hammersmith & Fulham,
Harrow, Hillingdon and Hounslow with their
1.4 million people have a population greater
than Birminghams and an economy bigger
than Frankfurts. Three quarters of a million
people work there at 67,000 businesses and
the region contributes 32 billion each year
to the nations economy. Within the area lie
Heathrow, the worlds busiest international
airport and Park Royal, which is Europes
largest industrial estate. Vital statistics to die
for if youre looking to attract businesses and
investment to your backyard.
Yet the noise surrounding London as
an investment location is dominated by
Docklands towers, the Citys financial services
hub, the East Ends Olympic ambitions
and the West Ends swanky squares. But
if travelling to meet your colleagues or
business associates in, say, Hong Kong, New
York or Silicon Valley is important to you,
where would be a more convenient location
for your office, Hackney or Hillingdon? Just
for the record, you cant fly directly from
London City Airport to any of these places
but Heathrow serves 160 destinations around
the world and offers 23 flights a day to the
Big Apple alone.
Closer to home business organisati on West
London Business (WLB) calculates that within
a 150-mile radius of West London there
is a market of 20 million people. It is not
surprising that many of the companies that
are located in its 20 or so business parks or
along the main transport arteries are service
businesses that supply this population.
Heathrow Airport alone through which more
than 67 million passengers move annually
provides jobs for 70,000 according BAA,
which owns the airport.
Ian Nichol, director of the West LondonAlliance, which aims to promote the
economic, environmental and social well
being of the West London community,
says: West London offers businesses a
range of unique strengths and particularly
interconnectivity with national, European
and international markets. Which is why
many company headquarters or other
office investments have been made in West
London. It is also increasingly attractive to
high-technology companies including IT and
biomedical businesses because of its skilled
labour force and locational advantages.
WLBs deputy chief executive and head
of investor development Russell Harris
says: West London continues to attract
new international investors from Europe,
North America and Asia, whilst many of its
The West side storyAs a business location West London is bigger and more powerful thanyou may think. Richard Willsher of The Business Magazine explains
existing major businesses have committed
their future to the area. Just look at the
Canon Europe decision to grow their HQ
presence at Stockley Park. In the past few
months we have also seen a number of high
profile moves from central London to West
London. These include, shopping channel
QVC moving to Chiswick Park, the drinks
company Diageo moving its London HQ toPark Royal, and GE Capital moving to its own
building, the Ark in Hammersmith, following
in the footsteps of media company Open
TV, who moved there last year. To support
future investment in West London, we will
launching a number of area and sector
investment propositions at MIPIM 2010, the
worlds largest property and investment
show in Cannes in March, where West
London will have a presence on the London
stand. These will help remind people of
the strength and momentum weve always
had in the West London economy. They will
outline how strong the creative and media,ICT, bio/pharma, food and drink, transport
and logitics sectors are, as well as giving
vital information to potential occupiers, and
investors and developers considering new
opportunities.
Although large and well-known companies
like GlaxoSmithKline, Heinz, Adobe, IKEA and
many more have premises in West London,
perhaps what is not so well appreciated is
just how many small business are located
there. Roughly a third of the jobs, thats
250,000 of them, are at SMEs.
All told, West London presents an impressivebusiness case and has a critical mass of
economic activity that on its own dwarfs
that of many of Europes major cities. So the
next time you scythe your way from the west
toward central London spare a thought for
the economic miracle that you are passing
through. Without it London would be a very
different city indeed.
Useful contacts:
The West London Investor Development Team:
Russell Harris
020-8607-2500
[email protected] West London Alliance
http://www.westlondonalliance.org
Above left: Fountain at Wembley StadiumBelow: Chiswick Park
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