|
A call to the Mayor of London to fulfill election pledges. According to the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), businesses with fewer than ten employees form over 90% of London’s 600,000 enterprises, and the London Mayoral website recognises that small businesses provide jobs for 40% of the Londoners employed in business. But what is being done to help them?
With the current economic difficulties and global slowdown, small businesses are helping to keep the London economy afloat. And yet all the news, speeches and political posturing we hear is about big banks and corporations. Small business doesn’t tend to get the exposure it deserves.
During the London Mayoral election campaign most of the talk was of bendy buses and booze bans, but Boris Johnson’s mayoral manifesto did make it clear that he has good small business credentials. His proposals included increasing funding for London’s businesses, and scrapping the proposed £25 Congestion Charge which would hit new businesses especially hard.
However, whilst these plans sounded all well and good, I’m inclined to ask why we have not heard more since Boris has taken office?
A brief look through the press releases that City Hall has issued since the Mayor started in May shows that he has made a number of appointments, in policing, young people and transport. He has also done substantial work towards improving safety in London, including supporting the Metropolitan Police’s new knife crime operation, Operation Blunt 2, and towards improving traffic conditions in London by working with Thames Water to reduce the impact their road works have on drivers. These initiatives are admirable and important to all businesses in the city, but what about fulfilling the pledges he made specifically to small businesses?
Without wanting to labour the point, Mr Johnson has made moves to implement other campaign promises such as announcing a consultation period on the abolition of half yearly black cab inspections, or making a start on tackling climate change by agreeing that London will host a major C40 conference whilst he is in office. But there are still very few tangible moves towards helping small businesses.
Supporting London’s businesses, both large and small, appeared to be one of Mr Johnson’s plans, but in the three months since he took over the role, we have seen little evidence that his policies to help SMEs are at the top of his agenda.
Whilst I appreciate that the new Mayor has a lot on his plate (for instance dealing with a riot on the tube!), I would like to see him start to fulfil some of his proposals in support of small businesses. Mr Johnson has said that he intends to review the London Development Agency which might help to redirect funding to help small businesses which are trying to grow, but there has been no concrete action yet.
I was thrilled to see a few weeks ago that Mr Johnson has acted on his promise to scrap the proposed £25 Congestion Charge - a levy which would have hit new businesses just at the time that they are most fragile and likely to fail, but cannot help but ask why it has taken this long to formalise the scrapping of a proposal.
I also think Mr Johnson should go even further and agree with the suggestion of the FSB to give micro and small businesses that are based or operate in the Congestion Zone residents’ rights for up to five business vehicles. As well as this, I join the FSB in calling for Mr Johnson to allow a common observation period of 15 minutes throughout London for deliveries together with a recognition that an out-of-hours delivery policy does not suit the 35% of London’s businesses based in residential premises.
Whilst the Mayor has announced that he will chair the recently set-up London Waste and Recycling Board (LWRB) and that up to £24 million of LDA funds will be used to improve waste management in the capital, there has been little real progress in creating a standardised system for recycling both domestic and business waste and ensuring that small businesses based in residential areas are not penalised in any way when recycling; another move that would help small businesses as well as the environment.
Small businesses play such a huge role in London, and the Mayor should be standing on the rooftops of City Hall, shouting about his plans to support them. After three months in office there should be far more evidence of real progress being made to support and encourage small businesses, to ensure that they are able to ride out the current economic difficulties and to give them the flexibility and support that they need to grow in the future.
London is rightly proud to be home to some of the biggest and most important companies in the world, but it is important to remember that these companies are only in London because of the products, services and vibrancy that small businesses bring to the city, and in this time of global slowdown, small businesses are uniquely placed to prop up the London economy when some bigger businesses may falter.
If you’ve got good policies and real intent Boris, then give SME’s some airtime!
 |
digg 
del.ico.us 
Newsvine 
Reddit 
Furl 
technorati 
Subscribe to this comment's feed
