22 Jun Collaborative partnerships focusing on local businesses helps Heathrow grow

At the Capital West London Growth Summit 2023, on 20 June, Lord David Blunkett, Chair of Heathrow Local Recovery Forum, celebrated the recovery of the Heathrow ecosystem and stressed the need for collaborative partnerships and mindful approaches to Heathrow’s future.

He said: “I’m very pleased that so many parties have contributed so much to ensure that we get people back into work in Heathrow and in the businesses, and communities that sustain Heathrow.”

Lord Blunkett shared the launch of a Heathrow Sustainable Economic Taskforce to pick up on the lessons learned and continue a collaborative partnership approach, ensuring their progress is, “much closer to what people actually want”.

With the Forum, he noted his ambitions were to, “combine the strength of Heathrow with the needs of local businesses,” allowing them to benefit the supply chain greatly not only by bringing investment into Heathrow but also building on the progress that has been made towards engaging small and medium-sized enterprises, making contracting much easier and more sustainable.

In addition, he said: “We work with both education providers and employers to make the critical development of skills a central part of everything that we do. We know we can’t manage without an Innovation Skills Programme. We know that the challenge is to fill the vacancies and we know we can do it if we work together.”