Thursday 27 February: Yesterday morning, the Mayor of London launched his new Growth Plan at Imperial College.

The plan is a 10-year strategy which aims to boost productivity, support businesses, and drive investment across key sectors, creating over 150,000 good jobs by 2028 and unlocking £107 billion in economic growth by 2035.

The plan focuses on infrastructure, business support, skills development, and green innovation, ensuring London remains a global leader in finance, technology, life sciences, and the experience economy. By fostering long-term stability and strategic investment, the plan seeks to deliver inclusive growth that benefits businesses, workers, and communities across the capital.

The plan outlines a series of core actions to foster growth in the capital:

• Create an Inclusive Talent Strategy to enhance workforce diversity and skills
• Establish a pan-London business support service to boost SME productivity
• Implement a long-term infrastructure framework to accelerate housing and transport projects
• Increase investment in innovative sectors such as life sciences and green technology
• Launch a fund to address critical skills shortages
• Expand support for SMEs securing public sector contracts
• Develop a new London Plan prioritising housing and growth
• Speed up electricity grid connections for major projects
• Attract institutional investment for net-zero infrastructure and real estate

Key Levers for Achieving These Goals

Frontier Innovation: Transforming scientific breakthroughs into commercial products and services.

Investing in Innovation: Initiatives like the Quantum Tech Incubator in Euston, a collaboration between Imperial College London, UCL, and King’s College London, to foster emerging quantum technologies.

Attracting Talent and Skills: Launching an Inclusive Talent Strategy to develop a skilled workforce in partnership with universities, employers, and industry stakeholders.

Key Growth Sectors

Frontier Innovation: Developing cutting-edge technologies like AI, quantum computing, life sciences, bioengineering, and robotics to drive future economic growth.

Financial, Professional, and Business Services: Strengthening London’s role as a global financial hub, including banking, legal, consulting, and fintech services.

Creative Industries and Technologies: Expanding film, television, gaming, music, fashion, and architecture, supported by advances in virtual production and immersive technologies.

The Experience Economy: Enhancing culture, events, sports, retail, hospitality, and attractions, which are vital for tourism and London’s global appeal.

International Education: Maintaining London’s status as the world’s top city for international students by strengthening its higher education and research excellence.

The Experience Economy

Crucially for HOLBA and the Heart of London area, the plan identifies the “experience economy” as a key pillar of growth in the capital.  The experience economy is defined as encompassing culture, events, sports, attractions, retail, and hospitality that are tradeable, relying heavily on visitor spending while also serving Londoners. The West End, Spitalfields, and Camden are recognised as major experience economy hubs. While this sector may not always rank high in traditional productivity metrics, it is crucial to London’s global appeal, attracting tourists, students, and investors and reinforcing the city’s strength in finance, technology, and creative industries. The experience economy also shapes the “London experience”, with culture, food, nightlife, and public spaces making the city attractive to talent and investment.

Relevant recommendations:

Supporting the West End: The Growth Plan aims to nurture the West End as an internationally significant creative industries cluster. It states that London will use all its levers to support its creative industries clusters to thrive – including planning, infrastructure, public land, placemaking, business support, inward investment, skills development and promotion.

Public realm investment: The Growth Plan acknowledges that need for public realm investment to support London’s high streets and a thriving experience economy. It states that the experience economy relies on local places particularly in the city centre to feel safe and clean, with well-designed and maintained public spaces.

Using planning and licensing to foster growth in central London: The Growth Plan emphasises the importance of using planning and licensing to foster growth in key areas. It states that London must use its planning, licensing, placemaking and infrastructure powers to nurture the city centre, citing upcoming plans for the transformation of Oxford Street and the CAZ Future Actions Plan as key growth opportunities.

An action plan for the Nighttime Economy: The Growth Plan commits to developing an action plan for London’s nightlife, led by the new Nightlife Taskforce. This initiative will focus on safeguarding existing venues, ensuring a diverse and economically resilient nightlife sector, and addressing key challenges such as licensing, business rates, and transport accessibility. The plan also seeks to provide a sustainable long-term funding model to support cultural institutions and night-time businesses, ensuring they continue to drive economic activity and attract international visitors.

A new model for business support: The Growth Plan recognises that the current fragmented approach to business support funding—which includes the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, growth hubs, and trade and investment support—must be replaced with a long-term, flexible funding model. It proposes a strategic, citywide business support service that aligns local and national funding sources, making it easier for London’s businesses to access tailored support.

A long-term infrastructure framework: The Growth Plan commits to setting a long-term framework and plan for London’s infrastructure, ensuring the city has the transport, energy, and digital infrastructure needed to support sustainable economic growth. Weak historic investment in infrastructure is identified as a major barrier to productivity, and the plan prioritises future-proofing London’s energy grid, upgrading public transport, and expanding key utilities.

Scaling up renewable energy generation: The Growth Plan sets out plans to scale up local renewable energy generation, identifying opportunities for solar, wind, and district heating projects. Expanding clean energy production is essential for London’s net zero ambitions and ensuring the city’s long-term energy security.

Sustainable funding for cultural institutions: The Growth Plan acknowledges that London’s cultural institutions need sustainable funding to continue attracting visitors and maintaining the city’s soft power on the global stage. The plan calls for long-term financial models to support institutions, ensuring they can continue to develop new programming, maintain facilities, and expand outreach.

Protecting high streets: The Growth Plan includes a commitment for the Metropolitan Police to work in partnership to support London’s city centre, town centres, and high streets through stronger neighbourhood policing. This initiative aims to tackle crime, anti-social behaviour, and retail theft, ensuring that high-footfall areas remain attractive and safe for businesses, workers, and visitors.

Ros Morgan, Chief Executive, HOLBA: 
“London has always been a city of reinvention. The West End’s future is not guaranteed, it is something we must actively shape. We need policymakers, businesses, investors, and the public to work together in a way we never have before. 

The time to act is now! The London Growth Plan presents us with an opportunity to unleash the full potential of London’s Experience Economy and ensure the West End remains a beacon of creativity, commerce, and culture for generations to come.”

The plan is available to read here.