Press release

PHE invites Harlow community to exhibition unveiling plans for a science hub

Public Health England will be holding a 3-day exhibition to unveil outline plans to create a public health science hub in Harlow, Essex, known as PHE Harlow.

PHE Harlow

The £400 million project will involve redeveloping the vacant GSK site at the New Frontiers Science Park to create a centre of excellence for research, health improvement and protection. The state-of-the-art science research facilities will bring together world renowned scientists to work in a single integrated campus.

PHE is encouraging as many people as possible to attend the event. Invitations have been sent to 7,500 people living within a mile of the site and many more have been distributed in and around the town.

The public exhibition is being held at Science Alive at Harlow Leisurezone from 3pm to 8pm on Thursday May 12 and Friday May 13 as well as from 10am to 1pm on Saturday May 14.

PHE Chief Executive Duncan Selbie said

We are really excited about coming to Harlow and it is important for us to engage and really understand how residents and local businesses and organisations feel towards our plans. We want to give people the opportunity to help us shape the scheme before we submit a formal planning application. I would like to encourage as many people as possible to attend and to let us know their thoughts.

Those attending will have the opportunity to talk to the team working on the PHE Harlow project as well as the architects who will be presenting their proposals. A feedback form will be available at both the event and online at www.gov.uk/phe/harlow which will also provide regular updates.

People who cannot attend the exhibition will be able to contact the PHE team:

UKHSA Harlow team

Background

  1. Public Health England exists to protect and improve the nation’s health and wellbeing, and reduce health inequalities. It does this through world-class science, knowledge and intelligence, advocacy, partnerships and the delivery of specialist public health services. PHE is an operationally autonomous executive agency of the Department of Health. Follow us on Twitter: @PHE_uk and Facebook: www.facebook.com/PublicHealthEngland.

  2. PHE submitted an Outline Business Case to government in July 2014. An interim decision was taken in September 2015 to move the majority of PHE functions from Porton to Harlow. In November, the government supported a further proposal to move PHE science facilities at Colindale to Harlow to create a single integrated campus.

  3. PHE will now work to take the proposal to full planning.

  4. It is hoped the Science Hub will be fully operational by 2024 with the first building work expected to start in 2019.

Updates to this page

Published 28 April 2016
Last updated 6 May 2016 + show all updates
  1. Updated contact details and added quote.

  2. First published.