A 160,000 sq ft factory has opened on Mandela Way in Southwark, around a mile from Tower Bridge. Advanced-manufacturing company Isembard will use it to produce precision components for sectors including aerospace and robotics, with a workforce expected to grow substantially over the coming year.
For a city more accustomed to announcements about new homes, offices or laboratories, there is something pleasingly unexpected about the word factory. London has spent decades losing manufacturing employment and industrial land, so a growing company deciding that an inner-London location is an advantage rather than an obstacle deserves some attention.
Isembard is not attempting to recreate the factories of London’s industrial past. Its operation brings software engineers into close contact with computer-controlled machinery, using automation to make specialist components in relatively small quantities. Access to London’s engineering and technology workforce has been cited as one of the reasons for locating here.
That provides an interesting sequel to our recent article, From Ford to Film: The Changing Shape of London’s Industrial Future. We looked then at the growth of film studios and the way production in London is changing. Film and television may sit within the creative industries, but behind the camera they still require people who can build and make things. Isembard is a more literal version of the same story: a contemporary London economy in which highly skilled digital work and physical production increasingly overlap.
There are reasons to welcome that development beyond the fortunes of one company. Manufacturing can provide a different range of skilled jobs from the service industries that dominate central London. Keeping production in the capital also allows businesses to draw upon London’s universities and technical expertise while contributing to local employment economies rather than separating design and innovation from the places where things are actually made.
London already has strong foundations on which that kind of economy could grow. Park Royal remains the capital’s largest concentration of industrial activity, while smaller pockets of manufacturing continue across the city. What Mandela Way adds is evidence that new businesses may also see value in locating production here.
This arrives at an interesting moment for the future of London’s industrial land. The Draft London Plan 2026 proposes allowing the plan-led release of some accessible industrial sites for housing while accommodating industrial growth elsewhere. That reflects the pressure London is under to find space for new homes, but it also raises a question about what we expect employment land to contribute to the city in future.
For years, much of the argument has understandably been about protecting industrial land because London still needs somewhere for logistics, workshops and the less visible activities that keep the city functioning. Isembard adds another consideration. Land retained for employment is not necessarily preserving yesterday’s economy. It may provide space for businesses that are only now emerging.
That does not mean every industrial site should be protected from housing, nor that expensive inner-London land will suddenly fill with factories. The Draft London Plan is attempting to manage precisely these competing demands. What examples such as Mandela Way can contribute is evidence about the sort of employment London might lose the capacity to accommodate if decisions about industrial land are based too heavily on what occupies it today.
There is also a more hopeful story here. London is exceptionally good at creating ideas, but a healthy city economy should have room for some of those ideas to become physical things too. If advanced manufacturing can take root alongside London’s established industrial businesses, it could broaden the jobs available to Londoners and strengthen local economies in parts of the city where productive employment still has a physical presence.
One factory does not make a manufacturing revival. But at a time when so much discussion about London’s economy is about what has been lost or what is becoming unaffordable, 160,000 sq ft of new manufacturing close to Tower Bridge is a welcome green shoot.
Our film studios article asked what London might make next. Mandela Way suggests we should keep watching.
Photo: Isembard
