focus on slough


The Curve – image credit: Strutt & Parker


SLOUGH: Enhancing its credentials as an international business hub – getting ready for a regeneration take-off


John Betjeman poetically called for bombs to fall on Slough, Ricky Gervais has ridiculed it in song and sit-com, but Thames Valley and international businessmen love it, writes John Burbedge


If he were alive, Betjeman might now view Slough more favourably, and ironically Gervais has brought an international awareness of this very fortunate town.


Fortunate? Yes, its location makes it both an ideal gateway for inward investors to ‘UK plc’ and with Heathrow on its doorstep, an ideal flight-path to the rest of the world.


Why else would Slough boast the UK’s highest concentration of global corporate HQs outside London?


Well, while the location of Slough is key to its appeal, a large skilled workforce catchment, cost-effective occupancy and, from this April, business rates appreciably lower than London’s, significantly enhance its commercial attractiveness.


And there are other major reasons why that Thames Valley west-of-London appeal is growing:


• The Elizabeth Line (CrossRail) will arrive in Slough from 2019 providing travel directly between the business heart of London and Slough, Langley and Burnham.


• By 2024 the proposed 5.5km Western Rail Link to Heathrow is set to cut airport journey times from Slough to just seven


minutes. It will also provide the Thames Valley with direct access to Heathrow and, via one interchange, 20% of the UK population.


• Last October, the Government approved runway expansion at Heathrow to boost UK airport capacity and provide more direct flights to UK destinations and up to 40 new cities abroad, plus 77,000 additional local jobs over the next 14 years.


• Located near the intersections of the M4, M40, M3 and M25, Slough already offers easy road access to the rest of the country.


• This year ‘smart motorway’ improvements – a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP) – will start between M4 junctions 3-12. Slough is served by junctions 5-7. The NSIP is scheduled to complete in 2022.


• Slough may sit astride tangible business and transportation links but it also utilises the virtual world’s digital superhighway. Today it’s home to one of the biggest data centre clusters in Europe. Almost 96% of local premises have superfast fibre broadband access.


• Slough remains the location of choice for many corporate HQs, data centres, telecommunications, automotive, digital,


THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – APRIL 2017


life-science and high-tech manufacturing businesses.


• Ironically, Brexit may also boost Slough with the nation’s eyes looking beyond Europe to global business links.


Slough’s trading estate pride and heritage


This would not be a ‘Focus on Slough’ without the mention of SEGRO, founded as the Slough Trading Company in 1920, straddling the A4 Bath Road, and later to become Europe’s largest trading estate, while providing major employment within the town.


This successful post-war venture provided the bedrock for SEGRO today, an income- focused REIT that owns or manages over six million square metres of space valued at £7.4 billion, serving customers from a wide range of industry sectors.


Its properties are located in and around major cities and at key transportation hubs in the UK and nine other European countries. SEGRO has been an integral part of Slough’s business and infrastructure development.


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