Creating Economic Opportunity
Our developments create new economic opportunity and we want people living in the surrounding areas to benefit from this. Working with local support organisations, we promote new employment opportunities on our developments to local job seekers and where local people to Canary Wharf are seeking to access further education to equip themselves with the required skills for a role, we have the Tower Hamlets and Canary Wharf Further Education Trust. Established in 1990, the Trust has supported more than 4,500 Tower Hamlets residents to access further and higher education as well as vocational training to make the journey through education and into employment.
To create this sustainable pipeline of local talent we must prepare the future workforce. We host over 100 work experience placements each year and numerous career insight days to job seekers and students to ensure they are aware of the types of roles that are available, but also to ensure they can equip themselves with the required skills to succeed in the future.
Economic opportunity is not always felt through direct employment, we recognise that there are huge opportunities in the supply chains that are created in both the construction and management of a building. From the beginning of development at Canary Wharf we have engaged with this supply chain and championed local business within it, this has resulted in us spending over £2 billion in the local economy.
Investment in building, supporting, and maintaining this strong local supply chain remains a key priority. In 1997 the Local Business Liaison Office was created which later evolved to become the East London Business Place (ELBP) in a joint venture with the East London Business Alliance (ELBA). We continue to lead and fund this support and supply-chain brokerage organisation which develops the business-competitiveness of small, medium, and micro enterprises (SMMEs) across London and the Thames Gateway. With the success of the initiative, when we began development of Southbank Place, the South London Procurement Network was set up to deliver the same support to businesses in and around South London. SMME’s who have been in receipt of support from ELBP and SLPN have gone on to secure contracts worth £637 million.