Club news – Embassy 38

London mayor to get financial control

No matter who wins the race for City Hall on 3 May, London’s next Mayor is likely to have more powers over the capital’s taxes and revenues, economic attachés learned.

Speaking at a meeting of the Association of Economic Representatives in London, Jeremy Skinner, chief economist at the GLA, told diplomats that the new mayor will gain more control over London’s finances, with TfL being given extra powers to receive business rates revenues.

He said that the business rates that the FCO pays on behalf of London’s diplomatic missions would in future go directly into the city’s coffers.

As head of strategic projects, Mr Skinner  outlined to diplomats how the 2012 Olympics had been a “vanguard of regeneration” in the east of the capital. He also said the relocation of the US Embassy to Nine Elms, south of the Thames, had catalysed huge redevelopment in Battersea.

He explained how largescale infrastructure projects, such as Crossrail and the extension of a branch of the Northern Line in Battersea, would catalyse future economic growth in deprived parts of the city.