London city councillors will be debating the city’s economic development draft report during Tuesday’s Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee meeting.
The report is a midterm assessment of the city’s economic strengths, challenges, and potential areas for growth, offering councillors a vision of current trends and opportunities.
Deputy Mayor Shawn Lewis said councillors will likely focus on the report’s draft stage instead of specific recommendations.
“I think probably the main struggle will be for folks to wrap their heads around the fact that this is not the final report, that this is an interim report,” Lewis said. “There will probably be a lot of questions to our staff and the consultant about what they should be expecting in the next steps.”
Photo Taken: (Evan Frederiksen, XFM News)
The draft report has lots of data that includes population trends, employment patterns, and trade issues affecting London’s advanced manufacturing sector. Lewis acknowledged that some councillors may have been hoping for more details in this report.
“When we talk about our competitive advantage with something like UNESCO City of Music, that’s fairly stable. But some of our strengths, like advanced manufacturing, are influenced by tariffs and trade, which makes it a little harder to pin down specific short-term actions,” he said.
The committee is expected to receive the report and may vote on a few amendments to guide the next stage of planning, but any detailed recommendations and specific actions will likely be included in the final report, along with consideration of any budget impacts.
“The real key thing there is a desire to lay out a plan where we can actually do things and be able to look at it five years from now and say, we checked off that one and we checked off that one, rather than a blueprint with just aspirational goals,” he said.
Tuesday’s Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee will start at 1 p.m. in council chambers at London City Hall.
