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Rising housing costs and lack of affordable housing in London are affecting labour recruitment and retention, particularly in the public sector—the ‘key-worker problem’ of recent government statements. But housing and labour-market problems are not confined to London. In this paper we highlight the extent and nature of affordability, recruitment, and retention problems in a high-cost location outside the capital: Surrey in South East England. We suggest that changes towards a more professional and managerial workforce have impacted on housing demand and hence prices. Planning and physical constraints have contributed to housing shortages and exacerbated rising housing costs. High housing costs are linked to recruitment and retention difficulties not only for public-sector employers but also for certain types of private-sector employers in Surrey. This raises problems for the sustainability of the local economy. Measures introduced to address these difficulties are helping ‘key workers’ to access housing locally, but this simply bids up house prices rather than increasing the overall supply of housing that is affordable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the assessment of the potency of business support services in England. It highlights that small business is formed mainly through the business link (BL) network. Using the theory of this business support, the four prepositions using the information from a new survey of over 3000 English SMEs have been formulated. The strong support to business link (BL) operators are also discussed.