New West End Company

Led by our new Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, this Government has promised to be steered by five core missions, including a focus on tackling crime and reforming the planning system.

This clarity of mission was clearly conveyed in the King’s Speech, which set out the Government’s commitment to delivering economic growth, strengthening police powers to tackle anti-social behaviour and empowering local communities with greater devolution. We know, however, that delivering the growth the country needs will require honest conversations about the challenges at hand, and a close working relationship with the business community to identify the solutions.

As the voice of over 600 businesses in the West End, we have long worked with successive governments to ensure that the voice of our members is heard at a national and local level. Following Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves', announcement of the new Labour Government's first Budget on 30 October, our efforts will now be on amplifying that voice through a programme of pre-Budget campaigning and advocacy.

We had the pleasure of welcoming Howard Dawber, Deputy Mayor for Business and Growth, to the West End for a tour of the district. We discussed the continuing evolution of the district, opportunities for growth, and challenges such as retail crime and an unwieldly business rates burden. On behalf of New West End Company and our members, I look forward to working with Howard to ensure we have the best environment for the West End to thrive long into the future.

Like many of our member businesses, New West End Company is busy preparing for Party Conference session which will be underway by the time I share my next CEO update in September. We look forward to attending both conferences, speaking on behalf of our members, and ensuring that the future success and prosperity of the West End is firmly on the national agenda. In the meantime, I hope you are able to enjoy a wonderful rest of the summer season.

DESTINATION MARKETING

We have commenced our summer marketing campaign, which positions the West End as a must-see summer destination for both domestic and international visitors. As part of New West End Company’s focus on boosting international tourism for the district, we built on learnings from a targeted, international paid campaign around the Champions League Final to deliver a social campaign to coincide with the Olympics. We are happy to report that, in just a few days, this second campaign has been incredibly successful, delivering over 100k impressions. Domestically, a paid print campaign featured in national newspapers such as the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph also continues to position the West End as a top destination this summer. 

We are delighted to announce a series of new offers across retail, leisure and F&B, now available to West End Club users, including 20% off at Liberty, 15% of spa treatments off Hotel Café Royal, and 20% off Lucky Cat's lunch menu between Monday - Wednesday. Please check our West End Club app for a full list of offers available across the district, alongside the Terms & Conditions of each offer. To find out more about how to join West End Club as a user, or a business offering bespoke discounts or experiences, please contact Danny Sullivan, Head of Destination Marketing, at danny.sullivan@newwestend.com.

SECURITY & OPERATIONS

This month, a new policing statement on the issue of VAWG identified that it was a national epidemic, which required a targeted approach and the support of police forces with specialist knowledge and training for investigators and officers. Here in the West End, we have invested in some of this bespoke training through Project Vigilant, which uses techniques often seen in counter-terrorism policing to train officers to spot signs and behavioural cues of potential offenders. Police trained in these techniques have already taken part in patrols across the West End.

Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) remains a top priority for New West End Company, and we look forward to building on the success of our VAWG Action Week, held at the beginning of July, which saw the Metropolitan Police Service, New West Company members and our Security and Operations team come together for a series of information and collaborative events, outlined here.

We are pleased to report that data gathered by our Security and Operations team was instrumental in the successful charging of a prolific shoplifter operation on Regent Street. The individual was charged with 14 counts of theft (totalling over £6,500), 1 count of making a threat to life, and 1 count of common assault, all of which occurred over a period of just four weeks. The charging of this individual showcases the centrality of partnership working to tackle retail crime and mitigating the impact of prolific offending in the West End. 

On 3 July, our Security and Operations team welcomed members to one of our regular ACT (Action Counter Terrorism) Operational Trainings, which aims to build preparedness and resilience across district.

Members who use our New West End Company cleansing app waited no longer than 30 minutes from reporting a cleansing issue to having a clean team on site. To download our app, please click the link below.

Download our cleaning app here.

CAMPAIGNING AND ADVOCACY

Labour’s General Election win at the start of July is set to usher to in a series of changes across many of the areas which matter most to our members – from economic growth, to policing and planning reform. We have already begin our post-election engagement on both a national and local level in earnest, beginning with a tour of our district with Howard Dawber, London’s Deputy Mayor for Business and Growth, and continue to ensure that the voice of our members is being heard, with Dee Corsi’s post-election commentary featured in the likes of Retail Week and City AM.

On 17 July, the King’s Speech laid out the Labour Government’s commitments on a series of issues including policing, devolution and planning. A full statement from our Chief Executive, Dee Corsi, can be found here.

The Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Angela Rayner, has published a consultation on planned changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). The consultation will run for eight weeks, closing at 23:45 on 24 September, and is available in full here.

The Treasury has issued a call for pre-Budget representations, which can be submitted by individuals or businesses through a dedicated portal. You can submit a representation, commenting on existing policy or suggested a new policy for consideration in the upcoming Budget, until 23:59 on 10 September. 

We continue to advocate for the reinstatement of tax-free shopping, with recent coverage of Dee Corsi speaking about the issue in CNN and WWD. In the coming months, we will also be evolving our campaign to ensure that tax-free shopping is part of a wider conversation on the future of U.K. tourism and global competitiveness – in line with the new Government’s focus on attracting inward investment and delivering economic growth.

We are set to launch a new monthly Campaigning and Advocacy newsletter from September, so that interested members can benefit from tailored updates on New West End Company’s campaigning activity, alongside analysis of relevant political activity from across Westminster and Whitehall. To register your interest, please sign-up here.

INSIGHTS

Our Enhanced Insights Programme, launched earlier this summer, and is now not only fully available to all members but also contains a breadth of new features which are entirely interactive and customisable through the member portal. The new Programme, which incorporates Mastercard spending data, offers members a granular look at spend, forward flight, hotel occupancy, sentiment and mobility data, enabling businesses across the district to engage more deeply with the trends most relevant to them. To schedule a 1:1 session with the Insights team to discuss the Programme, or to be taken through the dashboards and monthly reports, please contact Paddy Gamble, Head of Insights at paddy.gamble@newwestend.com.

EVENTS

We were delighted to attend Business LDN’s latest event in its ‘Meet the Deputy Mayor’ series on 23 July, where Nathan Parsad-Wyatt, Director of Communications and Campaigns, and Lorna Keegan, Head of Corporate Communications and External Affairs, had the pleasure of hearing from Justine Simons, OBE, Deputy Mayor for Culture and the Creative Industries. Justine spoke eloquently about the need to invest as rigorously in our capital’s creative infrastructure as we do in its built environment, and we welcomed her acknowledgement of tax-free shopping as a policy which had a direct impact on the creative economy, notably London’s fashion industry.

On 23 July, Richard Lancaster, Head of Public Realm & Infrastructure, Lorna Keegan, Head of Corporate Communications and External Affairs, and Izzy Jacobs-Coote, Corporate Events and Community Manager, attended the ‘Sustainable City Charter Summer Showcase’ at Somerset House. Hosted by the Westminster Property Alliance, in partnership with Westminster City Council, the event was a fantastic opportunity to hear about how businesses across the borough, including Derwent London and The Portman Estate, are rising to the Net Zero challenge. To find out more about the Sustainable City Charter, and how to become a signatory, please click here.

We remain engaged with the development of the London Growth Plan, which seeks to create high-quality, well-paid 150,000 new jobs by 2028, with a particular focus on the Central Business District. Our Chief Executive, Dee Corsi, attended an initial briefing call with Howard Dawber, Deputy Mayor for Business & Growth, in early June. New West End Company is scheduled to attend a follow-up session in early August, and will share relevant updates with members as they become available.

The Underbelly Festival at Cavendish Square is well underway, featuring the very best in circus, cabaret and comedy, as well as entertainment for the whole family. The free-to-enter festival runs until 21 September, and you can explore the programme and get tickets at underbellyfestival.com

OTHER

We are delighted to welcome both GSK and BDO to the West End, with the former moving into its new headquarters in The Earnshaw, and the latter signing on as the lead office tenant in the M Building. Both announcements indicate the strength of the office sector in the district, and underline the attractiveness of the West End as a destination for global corporations.

We are delighted that Nathan Parsad-Wyatt has now joined the team as Director of Communications and Campaigns. Nathan will report to Chief Executive Dee Corsi, focusing on strategic communications while also spearheading public affairs and consumer marketing initiatives throughout the West End.