Last night saw the Wandsworth Business Forum at Balham (with huge thanks to The Bedford for hosting us). And I came away feeling very upbeat about Wandsworth, and business in Wandsworth.

The council’s Economic Development Office run the meetings, rotating around locations in the borough at various business friendly times. The basic concept is to have some speakers on business related topics, followed by a networking session.

I was one of the speakers and was live-tweeted by Ian Fenn, something both flattering and scary – because it makes you realise how much of what you do can be public and instantly accessible. I’ve included his Tweets at the end of the post.

My spot was a real gallop through two topics. The first was what Wandsworth is doing to help fight the recession – the easiest thing to do is point you to wandsworth.gov.uk/recessionfighting. The second was to highlight the positive signs that are coming from the recession.

It’s easy to be negative in a recession, and I’m probably as guilty as any for that, but there are some good reasons to be postive in Wandsworth.

We monitor a wide range of indicators, like unemployment and benefit take-up to vacancies on our high streets, to watch how the recession is affecting Wandsworth. I won’t pretend we’ve not been hit, but we seem to be suffering much less than other places. So unemployment remains below the London and national averages and our vacancy rates are still remarkably low.

That’s not to say there aren’t problems around the corner. It might be unemployment is low because people are living off redundancy payments rather than signing-on, but so far we seem to weathering the storm well.

And there’s a lot to be positive about. Wandsworth is incredibly well placed to recover rapidly when the recession ends. We have a real vote of confidence in Nine Elms from the US Embassy. We have a highly skilled and flexble workforce. We have a prime, inner London, location.

But the main reason I came away upbeat was not because of what I know from the statistics, but from talking to businesses afterwards. No-one I spoke to pretended they weren’t having to tighten their belts, but there was a confidence and desire to succeed beyond that. We’ve always prided ourselves on being a business friendly borough – but when you meet the businesses here, it’s hard not to be business friendly.


Ian Fenn’s Tweets are below. The ‘From…’ is a link to the original Tweet on the Twitter website.

From @ifenn
Heading to the Wandsworth Business Forum and my ‘showdown’ with @jamescousins 🙂

From @ifenn
@jamescousins I don’t think you have too much to worry about. 🙂

From @ifenn
I now know I am at the Wandsworth Business Forum but for a moment there I thought I was at some bizarre fan club for deep-fried party food.

From @ifenn
.@jamescousins is speaking. Started tweeting it but Twitter gave me an error. Grr…

From @ifenn
.@jamescousins: Wandsworth Council is also trying to speed up it’s processes. They aim to pay suppliers, for example, quicker.

From @ifenn
.@jamescousins: a variety of business loans are available from the council through central goverment and London mayoral initiatives…

From @ifenn
.@jamescousins Wandsworth Council is now more relaxed about allowing businesses to advertise on pavements…

From @ifenn
.@jamescousins: we have a good location, the lowest level of inner London crime, and five great town centres.

From @ifenn
.@jamescousins: Being positive, we have evidence Wandsworth is doing well in the face of the recession. We are in a good position.

From @ifenn
Had a short but good chat with @jamescousins then walked home, breaking my Fitbug step target for the day. Phew!

This is my first weekly report-back on the blog.  It is currently a trial, and you can read some of my thoughts about it in a blog-post I wrote before commencing the reports.  It is not intended to be, nor can it be, an exhaustive report of what I have been doing during the week as a councillor, above all, the nature of a councillor’s work means a lot of the work done for ward residents remains confidential. It is very much a selected highlights of the week.

Neighbourhood Watch Strategy
Much of the start of the week was taken up with final preparations for the Neighbourhood Watch strategy – which combined with an unsettled baby – managed to dominate much of the bank-holiday weekend.  I’m rather proud of Neighbourhood Watch in Wandsworth, which has been a key partner in making Wandsworth inner London’s safest borough.  The new strategy will be launched next week, and enhances the role of Neighbourhood Watch as well as, for the first time, setting out what Watches, the council, police and other partners can expect from each other to help make Wandsworth even safer.

Meeting with Wandsworth Chamber of Commerce
Along with the Leader of the Council I regularly meet with the Wandsworth Chamber of Commerce to chat about issues in the borough. Perhaps unsurprisingly the biggest topic of discussion was the recession. I have tended towards the bearish when discussing the recession – thinking it will be long and hard. However, a lot of the anecdotal evidence I’ve heard suggests the recession is focussed on the retail sector and while property and construction are showing signs of recovery the retail sector is going to be struggling for some time to come. What was pleasing, however, is that Wandsworth’s businesses still seem fairly optimistic about the future.

CompeteFor London 2012 event
On Thursday I attended and said a few words at a CompeteFor event in Wandsworth. Almost as evidence of business confidence in Wandsworth around 150 businesses attended the event in Wandsworth Town Hall to hear how they could bid for work associated with the 2012 Olympics. When you often assume businesses are struggling to think what they will be doing for the next three months, it was great to see businesses keen to bid for work for the next three years and beyond. If you are a business interested in bidding for Olympic related work then you should visit the official Olympic site at london2012.com/business and CompeteFor.com which is handling the online bidding process.

Campaigning
One of the drawbacks of starting these reports now is that the council tends slow during summer, while we don’t have a ‘recess’ as such there a few formal meetings over summer. In addition, the council enters a purdah during election campaigns which means many meetings and events have to be cancelled. And, of course, that gap gets filled by campaigning by those of us unfortunate enough to be political animals. When I’ve not been at the town hall this week I’ve been on the doorstep (maybe even your’s). It has been an interesting campaign, perhaps for the wrong reasons with the expenses scandal. I hope to find time to post some reflections on it next week.

The number of people claiming Jobseekers Allowance (JSA) in Wandsworth broke through the 6,000 mark in April.

JSA claimants Apr 08 - Apr 09

The rate of increase was slower than previous months, not enough to say we’ve turned the corner, or even that we’re approaching the corner, but a smaller increase is good news nonetheless.

The total claiming JSA in April was 6,098, a rate of 3% which still compares favourably with the rates for London and nationally, both at 4.1%.

The total was 209 higher than last month and 2,390 higher than this time last year.  Increases of 3.5% and 64.5% respectively.

The council are running two more ‘recession workshops’ for local businesses.

The first is tonight (Wednesday 29 April) for businesses based in Wandsworth, Earlsfield and Southfields.  It is being held at Blend, 111-113 Wandsworth High Street at 7pm.  Attendees will be lucky enough to hear me speak on the council’s reponse.

The second is tomorrow (Thursday 30 April) for Clapham Junction businesses.  Held at Battersea Arts Centre on Lavender Hill it starts at 5.45pm.

GLE oneLondon will be at both events to provide advice and are offering ongoing mentoring to businesses.  Both will also provide networking opportunities for attendees.

With the Chancellor about to start his budget speech unemployment continues to climb.  Nationally 2.1 million people are claiming Jobseekers Allowance (JSA) with nearly 6,000 of those in Wandsworth.

JSA claimants Mar 08 - Mar 09In total 5,889 people are claiming JSA, 2.9% of the Wandsworth population.  We continue to be in a better position than the national and London averages, which are at 4%.

The figure for March is an increase of 408 (7.4%) from February and 2,144 (57.2%) from the same time last year.

This does not reveal the full extent of unemployment, just those who have chosen to apply for JSA and are found to be eligible.  Figures for actual unemployment are produced much later, the most recent figures show that in August last year 20,700 people of working age were on benefits.  Even less recent were the figures for last June which showed 9,000 people were unemployed (the JSA claim at the same time was just 3,741).

The council’s business advice sessions have been proving incredibly popular with local businesses, filling the venues and providing lots of useful advice.

The next two are now scheduled:

5.45pm on Thursday 16 April at Munai Nepalese Restaurant, 393 Upper Richmond Road, for businesses on Upper Richmond Road, Dover House Road and Tildesley Road.  This session will cover how to trade in difficult circumstances and have a session on business rates.  If you want to attend email sdwallace@wandsworth.gov.uk.

5.45pm on Thursday 30 April at Battersea Arts Centre, Lavender Hill.  This session will include advice on reducing overheads, improving efficiency, effective marketing and customer retention.  There will also be the opportunity to get on-going mentoring from oneLondon.  If you want to attend email lfreint@wandsworth.gov.uk.

In the nearly three years I’ve been responsible for the council’s economic development function business rates have been one of the most consistently raised concerns.  Business rates are set centrally by the government, but they make the council collect the money on their behalf.  If anything this makes businesses even more aware that they don’t benefit from being based in an efficient borough like Wandsworth: residents get a low council tax and excellent services, businesses pay central government taxes and do not benefit from many council services.

This year was promising to be particularly bad, because it marked the end of transitional relief.  Commercial properties were revalued in 2005 with some local businesses seeing their rateable value double.  Transitional relief was introduced for four years to soften the impact.  However, this meant rises were limited in 2006, 2007 and 2008, but any remaining transition would be in one fell swoop in 2009.

Amazingly, the government didn’t see this coming!  In Wandsworth businesses faced their rates doubling, trebling and even quadrupling overnight.  And it couldn’t have come at a worse time, in a recession small businesses – who often operate on small margins at the best of times – were facing disaster.

The council had been calling on the government to extend transitional relief, and the government has belatedly listened.  Sort of.

Businesses will now be allowed to defer the some or all of the increase and pay it over the following two years (2010-11 and 2011-12).  Of course, it might well be this is just deferring the problem if the recession is still creating a difficult trading environment, but we have to take what we can get.  Given that this problem has been four years in the making we should be pleased the government has been able to cobble something together at the last minute (although still not in time for the start of the financial year, businesses will have to pay a few months at the increased rates) we should be grateful.

Wandsworth has also been promoting small business rate relief.  So far nearly 2,000 companies have benefited by over £1,000,000 in relief.  If you think you might be eligible you can find out more on the council’s website.

Battersea In TouchWe are currently in the process of distributing the latest issue of ‘In Touch’, our consitutency wide paper.

If you prefer paperless, you can download a copy by following this link (543kb).

The issue contains:

  • Zero council tax increase this year
  • A message from Wandsworth Council Leader Edward Lister
  • Boris tackles City Hall waste to deliver tax freeze this year
  • What Wandsworth is doing to help combat the recession
  • David Cameron on the change our country needs

One event I’m going to miss is the the launch of our promotion of Nine Elms tonight.

Nine Elms is central London’s largest regeneration area – anchored by the Power Station to the west and New Covent Garden Market in the east there are about 450 acres on the Thames riverside, at one point just a mile from the Houses of Parliament.

The event will launch Nine Elms, Wandsworth – Regeneration in the heart of London which forms part of Wandsworth’s recession fighting programme.

Nine Elms has already got a major boost with the decision of the US Embassy to move to land around the Ponton Road area.  Not only will this generate direct employment (most embassy staff are locally employed, and the embassy is likely to twice the size of the current Grosevenor Square) but it is likely to attract other businesses associated with the embassy to the area.

The recession will not last forever, and the council, through events like this, is seeking to ensure Wandsworth not only fights the effects of recession, but comes out strong on the other side.

Unemployment claims nationally have hit 2,000,000 and if you follow this blog you’ll know I regularly report the JobSeeker’s Allowance JSA claims for Wandsworth.  The figures for February were released yesterday and showed a 13.6% jump from January.

JSA claimants Feb 08 - Feb 09

The increase means I’ve had to change the scale on the graph I was using (which only went to 5,000).  I’ve added 1,000 to the scale, but suspect it won’t last long.

In total 5,481 people were claiming JSA in Wandsworth in February.  This is an increase of 658 (13.6%) since January this year and an increase of 1,697 (44.8%) since February last year.  This figure contributes to a total 20,700 (10%) people who are claiming working age benefits in Wandsworth.

Gordon Brown still hasn’t said sorry.

It’s worth pointing out that unemployment and JSA claims are not the same thing.  You can be unemployed but, for whatever reason, not claim JSA.  The most recent total unemployment figures for Wandsworth are for June 2008 when 9,000 people were listed as unemployed but only 3,741 people were claiming JSA.