COUNCILLOR Russell Perrin has been the Leader of Harlow Council since October 28, 2021. The Garden Town is the next exciting evolution of Harlow’s journey.

He recently spoke to the team at Harlow and Gilston Garden Town (HGGT) about the project.

Cllr Perrin said:

“Sir Frederick Gibberd didn’t want his design to remain static over the years, he always knew that Harlow would get bigger and would have to expand.

And now we’re seeing that with the plans for across Harlow and into East Herts with the Gilston development.

There are generations of people that live in Harlow that want to stay in and around the local area, but they don’t have the housing currently.

The Garden Town will bring that housing and, in doing so, it will make Harlow a sub-regional destination, taking us to the next level as a go to location.

One of our main ambitions as an administration was to step up the regeneration of the town centre and that has now begun. (On Dec 16, Harlow Council announced they had bought the Harvey Centre for £21m)

We’ve had to take into account that people aren’t just going to town centres for shopping, there’s a whole cultural dimension to these spaces now and retail is just a part of that.

We have to be a leisure destination as well, a base where people spend the evening and take in a film or go to the theatre.

And that’s what we centred our funding bids on and what we’re doing in terms of regenerating the town centre.

If you’re going to expand the town then you need high skilled jobs for the people that live here.

It started with my administration and partners a decade ago with the arrival of the Enterprise Zone.

Harlow wasn’t seen as being the front runner for any kind of inward investment at the time and far bigger people than myself made it happen.

But from a District Council’s point of view, I said we need to be putting ourselves forward for this and Kevin Bentley from Essex County Council was also a supporter along with the MP.

And now we’re part of the ever growing Innovation Corridor with London and Cambridge, a geographical location for international businesses, academics, start-ups, finance and law firms.

One of the things that Harlow has suffered from is that people start off their life in a very good family environment, children grow up, they go to university and when they come back, what high skilled jobs are there for them?

Where is the local housing that goes with the career that they now aspire to achieve?

It’s very few and far between currently.

The beauty of the Garden Town is providing opportunity for the next generation, weaving it into the growth of the Innovation Corridor and creating high-skilled jobs for people so that everything is hand in glove with each other.

We also have the UK Health Security Agency locating to Harlow which is another big move for the town.

Harlow has a very big future for itself and it’s an exciting time to be leading that.

The plans that have been put forward by the Garden Town are very well thought out, they consider space, green living and new public travel routes.

I’m really keen to see how we integrate everything with the existing cycle network of Harlow, the idea being that you should be able to go along cycle paths and never come into contact with traffic.

That’s the ambition because other cities and towns have tried to merge the bike with the car and it doesn’t work.

And it becomes very dangerous for all concerned and puts a lot of people off using their bike.

When we’ve got to the point where you don’t need to worry about coming face to face with cars then I think we’ve cracked it.

The Garden Town’s new public travel routes are the start of this process.

While active travel is big for the Garden Town, we don’t want to make the car the enemy.

When you’re moving outside of the town, the car is still the preferred mode of transport for many so we need to future proof the infrastructure.

Let’s make sure that we’re thinking about electric cars, making sure we’ve got the charging points.

We’re on the cusp of being able to roll out this kind of infrastructure, and future tech to the benefit of everyone locally.

We cannot deliver the Garden Town without the five council partners, working collaboratively on something of this scale is absolutely critical.

And all of those partners are united in that whatever is built has to be sustainable and not just row upon row upon row of houses.

As the title suggests, we are creating a Garden Town, spaces for people to breathe, to enjoy the outdoors, to enjoy nature.

And that’s what Sir Frederick Gibberd wanted when he designed Harlow all those years ago.

BLOG: Opportunity for the Next Generation