Director of 16,000-home Harlow and Gilston Garden Town steps down

The former Hockerill Anglo-European College student directing the development of Harlow and Gilston Garden Town has stepped down.

Naisha Polaine will leave the project - one of the biggest regeneration and development initiatives in the country - at the start of December.

She said: “We have achieved so much over the last three years in the garden town and I’m proud to have evolved the project from planning and policy to one that is now delivering on the ground. We are pioneering and will continue to be so.

“With the new HGGT Joint Committee overseeing delivery on behalf of our five council partners, we have brought decision-making out into the public so that local residents and businesses can have their say.

“It is a fantastic governance model that can provide both unified and cross-boundary leadership to make the local area a go-to-destination for housing, education, employment, leisure and retail.”

“With a planning application now submitted for our new community at Latton Priory and the East of Harlow neighbourhood progressing towards its first houses, it feels like a good time to pass the torch to someone else who can oversee the next chapter of the Harlow and Gilston Garden Town story.”

She will take up a new role with Barnet Council at the start of 2025.

HGGT is a cross-border project to deliver 16,000 new homes over the next nine years.They will be built in new neighbourhoods in Water Lane, Latton Priory and East of Harlow with the fourth at Gilston - north of Harlow and across the River Stort in East Herts, where 10,000 properties will create seven new villages.

The development also aims to create 20,000 new jobs over the next two decades with the potential for the area to grow twice as fast as Cambridge and expand quicker than Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool.