News

This month’s blog comes from Sammie Steele, Managing Director of Placemaking and Regeneration at Places for People, who is overseeing the Gilston Park Estate development.   I joined Places for People because I am passionate about creating new, vibrant places for people to live, work and enjoy. I believe in genuine placemaking and putting people at the centre of new developments, and am working with my team to create a sustainable and innovative new neighbourhood at the Gilston Park Estate, as part of the wider Harlow & Gilston Garden Town. Places for People is responsible for masterplanning the Gilston Park Estate development, which means that even if some of the land [...]

This month's blog comes from Ken Flockhart, the General Manager of Down Hall Hotel - one of England's most established country house hotels, located in Hatfield Heath. With the business community slowly coming out of lockdown, Down Hall is making preparations for a busy and exciting summer. I joined the hotel as the General Manager just before the pandemic hit in the spring of 2020 and am proud of how my team of local staff have worked tirelessly to maintain and improve the hotel, which is set within 110 acres of rolling parkland. During the lockdown, we have kept a focus on implementing an improvement programme to make the hotel an [...]

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 [...]