What is happening with the UKHSA lab in Harlow, Essex?

Hidden in an industrial heritage in Essex there is a building that could someday house of the most mortal pathogens in the world.

Hundreds of millions of pounds have been spent creating one of the new most secret research centers in the United Kingdom, but the project in Harlow has been in Limbo since March 2023.

Initially it is expected to cost £ 530 million and opens in 2021, the government put the ice project when that estimate was shot at £ 3.2 billion.

With the uncertainty that continues to clouding what was promoted as a “great step forward for the public science of the United Kingdom”, the BBC analyzes where it was condemned.

The project was born from Conerns about high -content laboratories in Porton Down in Wiltshire and collide in northern London.

These sites are essential to detect and study the most dangerous pathogens, including Ebola and Covid-19.

But they are aging, stopping the end of their operational lives and need to replace the appropriate facilities to avoid the next pandemic.

After years of deliberations, it was Harlow who was announced as the home of a new Integrated National Center for Public Health Sciences in 2015.

The conservative deputy of the city at that time Robert Halfon celebrated him as a movement that would create thousands of jobs.

To work, 900 workers would be relocated from Wiltshire to Essex to start the transition.

However, the government agency responsible for supervising the project continued to change.

First it was discussed by the Health Protection Agency, which was super in 2013 by Public Health England (PHE), which became the National Institute for Health Protection (NIFP) in 2020.

The project was renamed the “Science Sciences” program when it fell into the newly created United Kingdom Health Security Agency in 2021, which replaced NIHP.

All the time, the price was still increasing and above.

It was estimated that the project would cost £ 530 million when it was announced by the Chancellor at that time, George Osborne, before being reviewed later that year to £ 888 million.

Phe bought a place owned by the Glaxosmithkline pharmaceutical company, in West Harlow, for £ 30 million for the ball to be launched in 2017.

Three business cases for development were written, but the government has never given any of them full approval.

The plot in industrial heritage is still composed of redundant and unused offices.

More than 400 million have been spent on the project to date, according to a report by the National Audit Office (NAO), but no work has tasks in March 2023.

Despite this, the BBC can reveal between that date and February 2025, UKHSA has disbursed £ 3.3 million in the inactive earth.

That includes £ 1.1 million in security, £ 1 million in public services invoices and £ 698,000 in maintenance, revealed under the Law of Freedom of Information.

The current cost of the entire project is estimated at £ 3.2 billion, a more than 500% figure higher than the initial forecast.

Speaking in a Committee on Public Affairs of the Chamber of the Commons in May 2024, Lady Meg Hillier said there had been no “responsibility” for the increase.

There are no construction work on the site, which is being maintained by the staff to keep it safe.

The government has been considering options for its high content laboratories and if building a new one is still viable.

He estimates that if the Harlow Center is built, it will not open before 2036, about 15 years late.

Eight public officials are working on the project, but their hands are tied while they hope to know if the government still wants to move on.

Nao’s report said that “doubts have emerged” about its viability within the Department of Health and Social Care.

He revealed that DHSC ministers had asked UKHSA to consider whether the update of existing sites in Porton Down and Coindale would be more profitable.

A UKHSA spokesman said the staff “expected a decision in the coming months.”

The problem was last raised in Parliament in March, when the Secretary of Health Wes Streeting was asked about delays.

“[This] It has been working for the system for so long that is now used in a case study for high -level official recruitment, “he said.

“Salachicha’s decision is indecision.

“It has plagued us for too long and I hope we can inform the house soon with a decision about it for everyone.”