London Gatwick holds biggest Economic Summit as they look to optimize regional economy

More than 200 delegate have attended the summit, held at the Hilton Hotel in the South Terminal, with the event hosted by broadcast journalist Sasha Qadri.

The event kicked off with a keynote speech from Gatwick’s CEO Stewart Wingate. He announced the launch of a new Gatwick Region Airport Economic Zone (AEZ), which will promote long-term sustainable economic growth and inward investment and talked about the future of the airport including their Northern Runway plans, which they home to hear the outcome of at the end of February 2025.

You can watch Stewart Wingate’s full keynote speech here.

On the summit, Mr Wingate told us: “This is the third year we've run the summit so we're delighted that we've continued this great work.

"This is the biggest one to date. We've got about 200 delegates here that includes many partners from business but also from the public sector as well so lots of our councils and we're delighted to see them participating.

"Our business association groups are also here. There are lots of delegates who are really wanting to have this conversation about how do we optimize the regional economy and we're pleased to play our role as Gatwick Airport in hosting this event, given that we're a big catalyst to the regional economy.”

See what Mr Wingate had to say in full in the video at the top of this page.