Sadiq Khan goals so as to add £100bn to London’s economic system by 2035 | London

Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, has introduced an bold plan so as to add greater than £100bn to the capital’s economic system inside a decade.

Unveiling what he’s calling the London progress plan, Khan mentioned he was allocating a whole lot of hundreds of thousands of kilos in devolved funding in an try to return the annual productiveness progress of the London economic system to the degrees seen earlier than the 2008 monetary disaster.

Concentrating on areas reminiscent of housing, transport, coaching, excessive streets and enterprise help, he mentioned the plan would “turbo-charge” the effectivity of the nation’s strongest financial hub.

The proposals embody allocating greater than £300m in central authorities abilities funding to native schemes to assist create greater than 150,000 jobs, with a concentrate on honest pay and good work, delivering on a marketing campaign pledge Khan made earlier than his re-election to a historic third time period final Could.

It additionally contains upgrades for London’s public transport community: an extension of the Docklands Gentle Railway to Thamesmead within the south-east, pushing the Bakerloo underground farther south to Lewisham, and utilizing present monitor to create a West London Orbital overground service.

Central to Khan’s ambition of including £107bn to the dimensions of the London economic system by 2035 will probably be rebooting its productiveness progress after a dismal efficiency within the UK and different superior economies for the reason that 2008 monetary disaster.

Productiveness progress – a key financial statistic that measures output per hour of labor – is taken into account important to elevating residing requirements by enabling employers to pay greater wages. London’s productiveness had grown by about 3.16% a yr on common between 1998 and 2007, however then plunged to a median charge of simply 0.12% within the years as much as 2022.

Hitting Khan’s targets would contain London’s productiveness progress reaching a median of two% a yr between 2025 and 2035. Attaining the £107bn aim would put an additional £11,000 on common within the pockets of London’s near-9-million inhabitants, and generate an additional £27.5bn in taxes to the Treasury in 2035.

Nonetheless, this may contain breaking solely with current historical past.

Whereas London stays Britain’s most efficient area – at greater than 25% above the nationwide common – Metropolis Corridor’s personal evaluation reveals the capital has suffered a far deeper slowdown in progress charges over the previous 15 years.

Highlighting the problem for the mayor, London’s productiveness solely grew in actual phrases by a complete of 1.5% between 2008 and 2021, in contrast with 6.9% progress for the nation as an entire.

Nationwide productiveness ranges have been falling lately, whereas the Workplace for Finances Duty forecasts that the development progress charge will solely attain 1.25% by 2029. The latest subnational figures present London’s productiveness fell by 0.9% in 2022, the most important of any area.

Khan mentioned his plan would “present a golden alternative to turbo-charge progress and unlock London’s full potential – for the advantage of all Londoners and the entire nation”.

“Finally, progress means little if folks can not really feel the advantages or see the constructive change it brings to their space. So our aim is to ship financial progress in each nook of our metropolis that helps to lift residing requirements, places more cash in folks’s pockets and allows us to put money into our public providers, as we proceed to construct a fairer and extra affluent London for all.”