Our priorities

The EC BID, together with its partners, has a shared vision to champion local priorities, amplify the significant assets across the footprint of the area and ensure we recreate all that is needed to foster and maintain a sustainable, agile, greener City with a greater social purpose.

As the area which the EC BID covers is vital to the UK economy, our success will create a ripple effect, which will be more important than ever in the post-Covid era. While already a vibrant place, it is now right for the EC BID to aspire to more, and to be a beacon for the capital.

We have set out four key strategic themes to ensure that we achieve our ambitions.

1

An evolving and diverse district

The City has always been an area which adapts and evolves, enabling it to maximise growth opportunities and establish itself as a global pioneer. This core theme will see your BID develop and deliver activities to harness new opportunities, attract and retain new talent and welcome new visitors. We want to help create a welcoming, accessible, attractive City, embracing a younger demographic, families and tourists – this is especially important for the city’s recovery.

2

A sustainable district:

The City of London Corporation has adopted a Climate Action Strategy which breaks new ground and sets out how the organisation will achieve net zero, build climate resilience and champion sustainable growth, both in the UK and globally. We will support and work with the City Corporation in implementing interventions that will work towards delivering the pledges set out within the Climate Action Strategy.

Climate change and our ability to respond to the challenges it poses to our society is likely to be one of the defining issues of our generation. As part of our ESG pledge, we aim to make a positive contribution by seizing the opportunities to work in partnership, tackling climate change, increasing business resilience and supporting the City’s transition to net zero by 2040.

3

Collective action – community empowerment

Through placing ESG at the heart of our offer we will advance our social agenda, promoting a strong and shared culture across our BID members – together we can be stronger, achieve more and have greater influence. We know that our businesses want to foster a sense of community, not only to help make better business decisions and be more efficient, but also to give something back and share experiences and expertise.

4

Promotion of the Eastern City cluster – fuelling wider economic vibrancy

The City’s global attractiveness and competitiveness is more important than ever, not only in the wake of the Covid pandemic, but also taking account of other districts (and countries) raising their game to attract the best talent and investment.

The levelling up agenda, while not unwelcome, poses a particular challenge to London and we must play our part to ensure that the Square Mile maintains its reputation as a driving force behind the UK economy.

Case study

The Asset Audit has been an important piece of work to inform how the EC BID can help to improve the experience of working and visiting the City.

Public realm, and supporting the City Corporation and its public realm vision, was identified as an early priority. We commissioned Publica to carry out an asset audit to complement the work of the Corporation, identifying opportunities across the footprint for public realm interventions – especially on private land – to provide a full picture of the spaces ripe for improvement.

You can read the reports here.