o Economic data summary
Minutes:
Daniel Murray, LBB Head of Economic Development, provided a summary economic outlook presentation.
In terms of GVA for 2021, Bromley’s total of £7.5bn was good, below Croydon but above other boroughs in Southeast London, but the GVA per job filled figure was not so productive at £62k – this indicated a need to drive up the value and productivity of local companies. The next 10-year trend figures would be available in April, but the 2021 figures showed that although Bromley was above the Outer London mean average, the gap had closed.
Employment by sector showed a dominance of health, education and retail and more jobs were needed in value-added sectors. Job-posting data showed over 4,000 jobs in the last twelve months.
Footfall data for Bromley Town Centre showed post-lockdown improvements to 2023, then a slight drop off. Similar data was available for other town centres, and the data could be presented for different days of the week or hours during the day.
Analysis of the nearly 15,000 businesses in Bromley showed that 92.6% were micro businesses, 7.1% SMEs and only 0.3% were larger businesses. However, it was important to ensure that these larger businesses remained in the borough.
In terms of enterprise, business births versus business deaths, data from 2018-2022 was dominated by pre/post lockdown; there was a slow recovery, but the figures were still negative for 2022. An upturn was anticipated in the 2023 figures. Bromley was very slightly behind the Outer London performance, but was broadly following the same trends.
Bromley had received £43.4m funding from Innovate UK since 2004. This was lower than its neighbours, partly due to the absence of a university in the borough. It was important to analyse this and seek greater funding levels.
Data just purchased from Data City based on a data scraping methodology to identify emerging economy businesses mapped against Real Time Industrial Classifications (RTICs) allowed the Council to understand the local innovation economy more effectively. 830 businesses had been identified in Bromley, and these could be presented by sector, employee numbers and turnover. These businesses and any clusters needed to be identified and supported.
The Borough had about 3.7m square feet of office space, with just under 20% rated 4 or 5 star. The overall vacancy rate was 5.8%, with over 18,000 square feet of 4 and 5 star space vacant. The Borough needed to do more to promote its commercial spaces and to improve its quality. Similar data was available for the industrial and retail sectors. It was suggested that there had been grade inflation affecting the definitions of quality, and that in reality most of the accommodation was below standard, with very little high quality office space in the Borough.
A table showing Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) completions related to London and Partners from 2019-2023 showed Bromley near the bottom of the chart, with room for improvement. The data around FDI could be challenging. For example, Castlepoint was registered in Bromley, but its offices (and therefore the jobs) were based in Westminster.
In response to questions, further work would be carried out to understand the 2024 10% drop in footfall for Bromley Town Centre.
Daniel Murray was due to meet with the Innovate UK Regional Rep and this would help to understand how the innovation offer could be improved.
Bruce Walker asked whether there was any high-quality office space available in Bromley. Lee Thomas responded that he was aware of two schemes nearly ready, but overall there was not much available. Investment funding was hard to find; there were people and organisations wanting to come to Bromley, but they were seeking only high-quality accommodation. Aspiration and deliverability were key.
Another comment was that Start-up Bromley worked well for particular types of business, but what was on offer for micro-businesses more generally? The next stage of business support was under discussion and firmer plans would be clarified later in the year. In conclusion, it was essential to understand the innovation economy, to understand what these businesses needed to grow and to support them.
RESOLVED that the update be noted.