Dog track is gone but White City is racing ahead
White City was once best known for its dog track and the BBC. The Beeb have long since moved on and the racing greyhounds are just a far distant memory.
Remarkably, this once scruffy and run down part of west London is rapidly turning into one of Europe’s leading tech and life sciences hubs.
The latest coup for the area came today with news that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has bought the government’s first quantum computer from a British company, Orca Computing, based in Wood Lane.
It is an address once inextricably linked with Blue Peter and Match of the Day, but now synonymous with incredibly advanced technology a million miles from sticky back plastic and wire coathangers.
It comes hard on the heels of another cutting edge life sciences business, Avacta, relocating its therapeutics division from Cambridge to the Scale Space lab hub in White City. When W12 is pulling business from arguably the world’s pre-eminent life sciences cluster outside America it must be on to something.
White City has become one of London’s most successful regenerations. As well as the glitz and glamour of private members club White City House, the Westfield shopping centre and the swanky apartments at the former BBC Television Centre, the presence of Imperial College has allowed it to draw in companies developing advanced technologies in the industries of the future.
Going to the dogs no more.
