Business support and advice

We provide a wide range of business support services. We hold various business promotion events and seminars and provide local business information (including vacant commercial property). We offer loans and grants for businesses at properties in designated town centres, work with developers to bring forward business space, support independent businesses (particularly in town centres) renew older industrial areas and improve our town centres. We also help businesses to get contracts at developments such as Battersea Power Station, help businesses with other council services and lead the local business support network.

Our specialisms

Small business support, town centre management, area regeneration, retailing, business finance for small firms and technology transfer.

Our aims and objectives

• Support small enterprises to maintain a viable and prosperous local economy
• Co-ordinate and deliver targeted and sustainable regeneration programmes in our deprived neighbourhoods of East Battersea, Tooting and Roehampton
• Maximise the economic potential and vibrancy of our town centres (Balham, Clapham Junction, Putney, Tooting and Wandsworth)
• Develop the skills of Wandsworth's adult workforce and improve access to jobs for all.
• Stimulate a thriving community by encouraging the development of a strong and independent voluntary sector.

Our role

• To be a voice for business within the Council, within and outside the borough
• To provide a strategic framework for many other Council and Government services
• To work with all Council Departments to improve services for Wandsworth businesses
• To ensure value for money through effective procurement and contract monitoring
• To lead many of the Council's bids for Government and other grant funding
• To provide input to the Council and Local Strategic Partnership's Community Strategy and Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy as part of the statutory duty to promote economic, social and environmental well-being
• Where appropriate, to act as the voice of the voluntary sector within the Council and promote the value of the voluntary sector in all policy areas.

Wandsworth as a business location

Wandsworth is an ideal location for business and is home to international companies as well as very many small and medium sized businesses. The rate at which new businesses are being set up in Wandsworth is among the highest in the UK. Here there is established positive support for business led by the Economic Development Office working in partnership with other business support agencies.

Winning the Contract: A free online course to help businesses learn about public procurement and how to bid for public sector contracts. 

The Glover Report of November 2008 identified barriers experienced by SMEs looking to supply goods and services to the public sector and made 12 recommendations to help make the marketplace and procurement more transparent.  Winning the Contract is part of the wide ranging programme of initiatives being undertaken by the Government. 

The course is hosted by learndirect Business and sponsored by BIS.

Find out more about the course at www.wandsworth.gov.uk/contracts/freecourse