The Clustering of Financial Services in London*



seminar or lunch - it’s important people can leave the office and come back in the
afternoon - there’s a convenience point of view.

3.6 Disadvantages of a London Location

The two most pressing problems for firms in the London financial services cluster are
the cost of premises and transport difficulties, local, national and international (Table 10).
The cost of premises is the single most highly ranked factor across the whole questionnaire.
However, this finding needs to be interpreted with care. To an extent, a cluster’s success
can be measured by increasing rents. The key question is: does this lead to the movement
of valuable activity out of the cluster? As discussed in the next section, we found the
answer to this question to be “no”. If activity does move out, it tends to be less valuable
activity.

Table 10: Disadvantages of a London Location

To what extent is London’s economic growth impeded by the following?

1

2

3

4

5

0

Total

Cost of business premises

8^

19^^

64^

ÏÏÔ"

103^

Γ

1193

State of the underground

14

29^^

59~

84-

114

8^

1155

National transport links

23

34

67

85

89

10

1077

Government regulation

29

41

66

68

80

22

981

International transport links

39

48

79

55

65

20

917

Local infrastructure (including buildings)

26"^

63^

92^

69^^

39^^

14

899^^

Environmental quality and pollution

43

72

99

48

20

26

776

The UK’s current position outside the Euro zone

82

76

57

29

26

37

651

Availability of staff with language skills

7T

68^^

69^^

4T

1^2^^

4T

64Ô"

Access to venture capital

101

52

50

15

8

80

455

Other

Ô"

Ô"

Γ

2^

13^

T

29



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