NovaLoca attend the West London Business Property Lunch – with guest speaker Anette Simspon

NovaLoca attended the West London Business Property Lunch last Friday at The Royal Horseguards Hotel, with the main topic of conversation being the regeneration project underway at Earls Court.

Project leader Anette Simpson, Director of Planning and Development at Capco, delivered a presentation outlining the progress and future of the development, as well as its impact on business in west London.

Earls Court Exhibition Centre is set to be demolished in 2015, despite opposition, as part of the areas regeneration. The development will offer thousands of new homes, a million sq ft of commercial space and £50m worth of transport improvements.

Simpson explained that schemes like this are important for the future of the capital: “London is growing at an unprecedented rate and we all know that London needs big schemes.”

As with any project of this magnitude there has been criticism from some quarters, especially the demolition of the historic exhibition centre causing concerns over entertainment space in the area.

However, Simpson played down these issues: “We have invested £30m in Olympia, meaning there will be no redundancies at Earls Court.”

Despite this criticism, she explained that the overall reaction to the ongoing regeneration has been positive: “It’s inevitable with a project like this that people don’t want it to happen, but at Earls Court people do want it to happen and are seeing that there is a lot of opportunity here.”

The presentation was attended by many leading business figures from West London and other interested parties, who were all treated to a magnificent setting in the Royal Horseguards Hotel and a lovely three course meal.

West London Business host a number of events and conferences throughout the year, with the next being a Park Royal Broadband Update on November 21^st.

You can find out more about the Earls Court Regeneration Project, by visiting the NovaLoca blog.

This entry was tagged: Business, CapCo, commercial space, Earls Court, Olympia, West London, West London Business