A vibrant business community is more important than ever. As we face up to a future of further funding cuts, economic growth is likely to remain a top priority for councils.

Commercial success shapes and supports the local economy and it also directly contributes to council funding. In Havering, we want to play our part in supporting our local entrepreneurs,  SMEs and more established businesses to be successful, viable players in a challenging climate. That's why we've put real energy and drive into engaging with our businesses.

The local businesses in Havering range from national players, to independent retailers, traders and bar and café owners. Our evolving business growth strategy is a twin-track effort to ‘grow our own' firms – benefiting from the tremendous entrepreneurial spirit around us in east London and Essex – and to attract inward investment.

While it is important to focus on attracting new businesses to the borough, we believe that commercial success is best developed from the ground up. So we wanted to understand the pressures faced by the nearly 8,000 existing businesses in the borough, which continues to help us develop a programme of support that meets their needs and cements our reputation as a business-friendly borough.

Experience and feedback told us that one of the best things we could to do to encourage growth was to create a climate in which business owners were able to communicate directly with us and share their views, ideas and suggestions. We've worked hard to open a range of opportunities for those conversations to take place.

Five years ago, I launched quarterly meetings of the Leader's Business Network – an opportunity to meet and talk with local firms about the issues that matter to them. We have about 80 regular attendees with many others dropping in, all providing honest and unvarnished feedback while networking with peers.