Ealing is vital to London’s economy. The borough contains around 8% of the city’s designated industrial floorspace, which includes important activity ranging from high-tech manufacturing to logistics. Demand for industrial space has reached unprecedented levels. Ealing wanted to harness this to deliver maximum benefits for its residents.

Together with We Made That, PRD undertook two pieces of research: an Inclusive Economy baseline and an Industrial Workspace Audit. The process brought together a broad range of evidence to enable officers and politicians to think differently about the borough’s socioeconomic performance. This showed that despite perceptions of affluence, Ealing has a range of deeply embedded challenges, ranging from rising in-work poverty to a severe and disproportionate COVID-19 impact.

Industrious Ealing also evidenced significant market failures in the borough’s industrial land market that cannot be addressed through planning policy alone. Our recommendations proposed a coordinated and proactive response to these challenges encompassing the wider policy levers available to the council. Industrious Ealing will enable the borough to maximise and intensify its supply of industrial land whilst also addressing key social, economic, and environmental challenges.