ON Monday evening, a meeting of the Harlow and Gilston Garden Town (HGGT) committee took place.

The partnership is a collaborative project between five local councils—East Herts, Epping Forest, Harlow District, Essex County, and Hertfordshire County to deliver 23,000 new homes and associated infrastructure in Gilston, Latton. Priory, Water Lane and East Harlow.

We couldn’t help but notice what we interpreted as a somewhat gloomy opening from the chief executive Paula Hirst.

It started to make us wonder if the plans for Gilston, Water Lane, East Harlow, Latton Priory will ever get built or will they languish in what they describe as “development hell”?

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Work on a huge new garden town with 23,000 homes near Harlow has been delayed with concerns that progress on the plans is going too slowly.

Paula Hirst, who is overseeing plans for the Harlow & Gilston Garden Town, has said teams working on the project had been progressing more slowly than originally anticipated due to a ‘lack of shared understanding’ over delivery of the new homes and the infrastructure needed to support them.

There has been some progress in the plans – the first phase of work to develop new public transport, walking and cycling links as part of Homes England’s £182 million investment in Harlow through its Housing Infrastructure Grant is now complete.

But, there is currently a funding gap and timing issues for sustainable transport infrastructure for the first homes to be built in the project.

Ms Hirst said: “There’s general concern that delivery of homes and infrastructure has not progressed at the pace and scale that was originally envisaged when the garden town was designated in 2017.

“In addition, whilst good progress has been made regarding the first leg of the sustainable transport corridor – the north to centre, which opened last week- further progress on the rest of the network has not been to the speed envisaged.

“And there remains a quite significant funding gap in the delivery of some of that infrastructure, which is part of the reasons why it has been delayed.”

She said the partnership team is now being refocused, so much more of its time and attention is being devoted to unlocking delivery better.

She added: “With that in mind, over the last three months I’ve tried to refocus the team to that end. So we’ve had a number of conversations with, in particular, on Water Lane and with east of Harlow, the landowners, promoters and the various representatives.”

It will also see the regeneration of Harlow’s town centre, with ambitious plans to bring forward a new Arts and Cultural Quarter alongside a redeveloped Broad Walk area and an upgraded bus station.