Thames Estuary Production Corridor: Case for Investment

16,000 creative and cultural production businesses exist across the Thames Estuary

49% increase in industrial space rents across the Thames Estuary since 2012

Potential for 50,000 new creative and cultural production jobs across the Thames Estuary

Potential to contribute an additional £3.7bn to the UK economy each year through new creative and cultural production jobs

Challenges

The UK’s creative and cultural industries are one of the fastest-growing components of the UK economy (growing at five times the rate of the economy as a whole in 2018) and London is at the heart of this with its world class creative and cultural institutions (e.g. Royal Albert Hall, National Portrait Gallery, V&A Museum, British Film Institution etc).
Competition for space from residential uses and rising property costs in London is pricing out the creative and cultural industries, particularly businesses that produce outputs for creative consumption (e.g. film producers, artists, set designers, architects, fashion designers and photographers).
The Thames Estuary is an important part of London’s creative and cultural ecosystem and has significant opportunities to support production activities to prosper, but this potential is not yet being fully realised.

Solutions

Hatch worked with the Mayor of London and partners across the Thames Estuary to develop a vision and action plan to support the sub-region to become: “…a world-class centre for creative and cultural production – leading global innovation, developing talent and cultivating world changing ideas”.
Our report set out how partners could capitalise on the sub-region’s opportunities and competitive advantages to move from vision and strategizing to action and delivery.
We also quantified the potential economic benefits of delivering the strategy and created a compelling case for Government to invest in the initiative.

Highlights

Defining the economic future of one of London’s biggest opportunity areas.
Supporting the creation of one of the world’s most prominent creative and cultural production clusters.
Securing £4.3m of initial investment in the initiative via the Governments Creative Development Fund.

Project numbers

16,000 creative and cultural production businesses supporting over 46,000 jobs across the Thames Estuar
£200m of investment in large scale production facilities across the Thames Estuary over the last decade
37% increase in the number of creative and cultural production businesses across the Thames Estuary over the last five years
Potential for 50,000 new creative and cultural production jobs across the Thames Estuary
Potential to contribute an additional £3.7bn to the UK economy each year through new creative and cultural production jobs