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BIG Society is alive and kicking in Harlow – that was the verdict of the Coalition Government minister tasked with championing the sweeping social initiative following a visit to the town on Thursday.
Conservative MP Nick Hurd – the recently appointed Minister for Civil Society – met face-to-face with councillors and representatives from the town’s thriving voluntary sector to find out more about local community-led projects and organisations.
During his four-hour whistlestop tour of the town, he visited Rainbow Services, the Maybury Centre and Café Youth and met members of the Harlow Multi-Faith Forum before heading to the Civic Centre to officially launch Harlow Council’s new Big Society website.
Speaking to the Star during his visit, Mr Hurd said he had been impressed with the level of ongoing community-led activity in the town and welcomed the council’s commitment to support the future development of social enterprises and co-operatives.
"I have been hugely impressed by the sense of cohesion in the Harlow community and the real determination to work together to get things done," he said.
"A lot of the things we are trying to encourage in terms of communities taking more leadership about what they want to get done and the role of the voluntary sector within that is happening right here and now in Harlow.
"Harlow Council clearly gets what the Government is trying to do and has set up a fantastic web-based resource which I'm sure will encourage the people of Harlow to get involved in local Big Society projects."
Asked whether the much-vaunted Big Society initiative was merely a means of masking cuts to public spending, Mr Hurd defended the "political philosophy" behind the scheme.
"What we are saying is that over time people have become conditioned to think that the Government has got the solutions to everything, and in that process we’ve lost something in terms of our sense of obligation and responsibility to each other," he said.
"It’s those values that we want to try and establish and encourage much more local leadership – local people know what's best for Harlow and we want to give them the opportunity to express themselves."
