Last July was a historic month for the Garden Town with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the Rt Hon Wes Streeting MP, announcing that the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) would be moving their operations from Porton Down and Colindale to a new National Biosecurity Centre in the Pinnacles area of Harlow.
The new Centre will place Harlow and the Garden Town at the heart of global medical research and will act as a significant catalyst for growth within the UK Innovation Corridor.
The UK Innovation Corridor is an economic region of global significance from London to Cambridge, with the Garden Town at its centre, and is the UK’s leading location for life sciences and knowledge based industries.
John McGill, the UK Innovation Corridor’s Director, tells us why UKHSA is great news for the Garden Town in this blog:
The new National Biosecurity Centre in Harlow will be the biggest of its kind in Europe, a fantastic example of inward public investment in a town that’s going places.
Harlow is the perfect fit for UKHSA because of the wider growth planned for the area.
And the clear governance model for the Garden Town gives investors real confidence in what’s coming.
The UK Innovation Corridor has a thriving life and health sciences sector, spanning research, trials, testing, and manufacturing.
UKHSA’s arrival strengthens that focus and builds on our ambition to become one of the top five tech regions in the world.
We’ve got a way to go before we’re mentioned alongside Silicon Valley, but UKHSA moving to Harlow is a big step towards that goal.
Silicon Valley’s economic value tops £800 billion and a great example of what’s possible and collaboration will help us get there.
That’s why the Innovation Corridor looks to global tech hubs like Silicon Valley, North Carolina, Boston, and Zurich.
Are they considering a UK footprint? Can we work with them and create inward investment opportunities?
If so, proximity to London is a basic requirement and we’ve got that with Harlow and the wider Corridor.
The UKHSA announcement couldn’t have come at a better time and it’s a huge confidence boost for investment in the UK Innovation Corridor.
This is a £3.5 billion project, the government’s biggest-ever investment in the sector and that’s a bold statement about the future.
It’s a vote of confidence in Harlow, the Garden Town, and the UK.
Right now, the priority is construction.
But the real opportunity lies in what comes next: jobs, supply chains, and economic growth.
What operational model will UKHSA adopt? Will it open doors for collaboration?
Some research will focus on high-containment challenges, from Ebola to future Covid variants, work that benefits the world.
And in other areas we anticipate an open, collaborative approach where private companies work alongside UKHSA on-site. That would put Harlow firmly on the map.
We’ve seen this approach in Cambridge at the Biomedical Campus and at the new Cambridge West science park with integrated working and private-sector partnerships.
That’s the model we want for the UK Innovation Corridor.
And it’s vital that local people feel part of this future.
UKHSA should inspire Harlow’s young people to see real career opportunities over the next decade.
Global talent will come, that’s inevitable.
But cultivating local aspiration is key.
