Will original Essex 'new town' decide the election?

Standing the test of time? Harlow New Town was devised in the late 1940s

In Harlow they are queuing for food.

It’s just before 11.30 in the morning and the line of people stretches along one side of the old BHS department store in the town.

Angela Moore, 65, queues up every week, seeking a bargain at the town’s social supermarket.

She says: “Without this place I’d be in a bad place as things are so expensive now. I’ll be retiring soon and I just don’t know how I’m going to manage.”

'Too many victims of society'

For Angela and many others in the queue the cost of living looms large at this election.

Andy Thornton, who is chair of the Michael Roberts Charitable Trust, which runs Harlow Foodbank and the social supermarket, called the Bounty Club, explains how one in 20 households in the town use their services. Last August alone they sold 6,000 items from their second hand school uniform shop.

He says: “I sometimes think wouldn’t it be better if we weren’t here so people could see how bad it was, but if we weren’t here they’d be too many victims of society.

“We’re busy, but the imperative for us is that if someone wakes up in Harlow with no food in their house with children crying, with that crisis mindset that they don’t know what to do next, we are there for them.”

Andy Thornton, from Harlow Foodbank, says it helped one in 20 households last year

Back at the front of the queue, shoppers are invited to write messages on a white sheet to whoever will be Harlow’s next MP.

Rachel, who is homeless, writes: “When it rains, look for rainbows”.

She adds: “Life is very, very hard for people and it’s a horrible feeling when you wake up in the morning and you don’t know where you are going to be from one minute to the next.”

Residents queue up to get discounted food at Harlow's social supermarket

There will be a new MP here this time regardless of the party voters go for.

The long-standing Conservative Robert Halfon decided he wouldn’t stand again leaving his Tory replacement hoping to hang on to his 14,000 majority.

But this is a bellwether town, and so, since 1983, the party winning here has gone on to win the General Election. Labour will hope it is them, but they didn’t manage to win the local elections in May as the Conservatives narrowly held on.

And Labour haven’t had an MP here since 2010, an age that ushered in the coalition era of Cameron and Clegg.

However, there will be new and more voters to appeal to this time with boundary changes meaning villages nearby, such as Hatfield Heath and Great (and Little) Hallingbury, move in from what was the Saffron Waldon constituency taking the electorate to more than 73,000.

New meets the old

The modern looking Water Gardens

Harlow, though, is a town of contrasts. Around the corner from where they queue for food, is the modern Water Gardens retail and dining estate where the Civic Officers sit alongside Five Guys and Nandos.

Further out, the decaying Princess Alexandra Hospital is in desperate need of life support, with a new hospital now not likely until the next decade.

The old town centre is made up of New Town-style closed up shops on either side of a pedestrianised square.

It was first created at the end of the 1940s by Sir Frederick Gibberd to ease London overcrowding after the Second World War and was ahead of its time for cycle paths and public art, with residents not far from many of its sculptures.

Former office block Terminus House now provides homes for those in need

But its modern difficulties loom large on the horizon.

Jaleigh, 25, is sat on a bench with the imposing Terminus House behind her.

A former office block turned accommodation for those being moved out from London to Harlow and elsewhere. A new take on New Towns.

“There needs to be more effort to providing housing for people," she says.

"This country was built on Windrush, but a lot of people talk about housing for the people born here, but people need to put themselves in the perspective of those that are sent here."

• Hannah Ellis, Conservative

• Malcolm Featherstone, Reform UK

• Yasmin Gregory, Green Party

• Riad Mannan, Liberal Democrat

• Lois Perry, UK Independence Party

• Chris Vince, Labour

You can find a full list of candidates standing in the Harlow constituency here.

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