Julie Bailey, Inclusive Employment Consultant at ECL tells us how employing someone with learning disabilities has been proven to boost both workplace morale and productivity. Did you know that disabled people are more than twice as likely to be unemployed as non-disabled people? Through our company Essex Carers Limited (ECL), we are trying to challenge the prejudices around employing disabled people by matching employers with candidates and providing support to these candidates in their jobs. Employing someone with a disability and becoming a Disability Confident Employer has huge benefits. Our clients thrive on routine and repetitive tasks that other employees cannot sustain, or may find mundane. Our clients increase job loyalty [...]

Dave Burrows, Economic Development Advisor to the Innovation Core, tells us about Harlow’s exciting new resident, the UK’s largest Supercomputer - Cambridge-1. The Innovation Core is the central part of the UK Innovation Corridor, situated midway between London and Cambridge, encompassing Harlow, Broxbourne, East Herts, Epping, and Uttlesford districts. Medtech and Digital Health have been identified as a key investment opportunity for the Innovation Core within the broader Life Sciences offer of the UK Innovation Corridor, considering the regional intersection of Advanced Manufacturing, ICT, and Life Sciences. Taking advantage of all this opportunity, US chip and technology company, NVIDIA, have just announced that they will site their powerful new supercomputer in [...]

Our blog this month comes from Emma Robson at Stort Valley Spirits, a small artisan producer in Harlow. Emma has pulled together a great selection of businesses to help you shop local this Christmas. A brewery, coffee roasting company, a free-range turkey farm - these are just a few of the many artisan producers with a home in Harlow. When I moved to the area in 2017, I had no idea that so many local producers existed and neither had my husband, despite being a lifelong Harlow resident. Since then, we’ve made it our mission to discover as many as possible. Higher profile local producers include Mayfield Farm Bakery, responsible for [...]

Donna Tyrelli, Managing Director of ReGlow Ltd talks about the challenges we face on the road to carbon zero. Work-life balance is a hot topic in 2020, and an important consideration when starting my own business ReGlow Ltd, a specialist in zero carbon solutions, back in 2019. Moving from London, I wanted to live and locate my business somewhere that gave me this balance, somewhere with easy access to the city, good travel links, and, as an enthusiastic climber, a local indoor climbing wall and good links to outdoor climbing areas. I found the perfect home and business location in Harlow. ReGlow is growing quickly. Since the Paris Agreement was signed [...]

This month's blog is written by PC Bradley Hall, Community Safety Engagement Officer based in Harlow for Essex Police. As Harlow Community Safety Engagement Officer, I enjoy speaking with people across the community in Harlow, from residents to community groups, charities and businesses. My role is to find out what matters to them and work with them to ensure effective crime prevention. As a police force, we are proud to be Harlow Ambassadors and through joining Discover Harlow we are pleased to have already started helping other Ambassadors keep their businesses safe and prevent crime. We are really excited to be partnering with Harlow businesses to provide advice, including safeguarding training [...]

From the age of 10, I wanted to study Law. My inspiration derived from the sharply-dressed lawyers on the 80’s American TV series LA Law. During my GCSEs and selecting a college to attend, I realised my dream of becoming a lawyer was no longer the career path I wanted to pursue. I can recall flicking through different college prospectuses hoping to find an alternative. I recall not receiving any guidance or knowing anyone who could relate to what I was going through. I felt pressured as most of my friends had their career paths mapped out and sensed they felt I should know which area of interest my future lies, [...]

This month’s blog comes from Kat Pulford, Community Manager at St Elizabeth’s Centre in Much Hadham, who employ over 650 people - half of whom are living in Harlow. St Elizabeth's is a national charity founded in 1903 supporting around 200 children and adults of all ages with epilepsy and other complex medical conditions. Over the past 117 years, St Elizabeth's has grown and developed and it now offers: non-maintained special school for both boarders and day students a specialist further education college domiciliary care for college learners residential care with nursing for 102 adults across 12 purpose-built bungalows a comprehensive day opportunities programme for residents and day clients 24 hour [...]

When I joined Harlow Art Trust as Artistic Director two years ago, I knew the value of public art in theory, but it took a global pandemic for me to understand it in practice. Artistic Director Kate Harding with Auguste Rodin’s ‘Eve’ (1897) in the Water Gardens, Harlow Town Centre. Harlow’s sculpture collection is a result of the Second World War: the last truly global crisis in modern memory. At the outset, it was an imaginative and ambitious attempt to rebuild communities. The sculptures were a way to create public spaces people would enjoy using and sharing with their neighbours. They reflected the optimism of the post-war period and projected [...]

Public Health England (PHE) is among many organisations at the forefront of the fight against COVID-19. There is hardly anyone within the organisation either not working on or supporting the totally unprecedented operation to tackle the virus which has dominated media headlines for many weeks now. At the tip of that effort are the hundreds of PHE scientists working with partners nationally and globally who are striving to contain and then eliminate the virus on a scale never seen before. Running parallel to that incredible work, is the programme which will deliver PHE’s new world-leading public health science campus at the former GSK site at Harlow. With state-of-the-art facilities and [...]

This month's blog comes from Sarah Thompson, CEO of St Clare Hospice, a local charity which cares for hundreds of people across West Essex and the East Hertfordshire border each year. This month we really should be celebrating; it’s St Clare Hospice’s 30th birthday, and we have just received an ‘Outstanding’ rating from the Care Quality Commission. However, due to coronavirus, we have put plans to celebrate on hold. Now is not the time. Instead we have had to launch an urgent fundraising appeal in a bid to offset the projected income loss of up to £100,000 from cancelling and postponing many of our key fundraising events this year. This amount [...]