Moving your business? Let Restore Harrow Green take the stress out of it

Restore Harrow Green opened their Cambridge branch in 2020 following a huge growth and focus on the life science industry.

Now, four years later, the branch is supported by a highly-skilled team working as a growing hub for scientific and business customers in and around Cambridge and East Anglia. It also links seamlessly with its nine other UK branches to supply an agile distribution service to customers across the country.

Cambridge branch manager Paul Norman says: “Since we opened our doors, we have grown year on year, and recently completed the largest laboratory move in Europe. Our reputation has grown alongside our team, and we are now the go-to business for all life science moves.

“Our service offering is expanding this year with our biobanking services, supporting customers with biobank storage and disaster recovery. Our facility in Cambridge has been expanded to include a bank of -80C freezers with secure entry and 24/7 monitoring.”

From moving precious fertility samples to being part of Europe’s largest lab move, Restore Harrow Green are hard to beat. And this isn’t limited to lab moves - the team have experts in heritage and museum relocations and all commercial and business moves and changes.

“With our base in London and Cambridge and with another set to open in Oxford in the next few weeks, we are well placed to service the golden triangle,” says Paul. “Demand for lab space will continue to grow as investment in life science industries continues to grow. What we’re hearing is that there isn’t enough top-quality space now and that supply is not keeping pace.

“We are expecting the further density on existing science parks will continue to be a trend. There will also be more purpose-built stock in new urban locations, perhaps in direct partnership with universities.

“This is an exciting time for the life science sector, with significant growth potential in the UK. Our role is to support the industry with relocations, storage and distribution services, and as we move through 2024, another new branch will be open, and we will be extending the services we offer.”

For all your life science, commercial and heritage relocation, storage and distribution needs and to find out more about our biobanking services, contact the Restore Harrow Green Cambridge team on 01223 616680 or email cambridge@restore-harrowgreen.com.

Your lab relocation FAQs

How much notice do I need to give to book you in to complete my lab relocation?

This is a question we get asked very often. The main factors that determine this are things such as where you are up to with any initial planning, the size of your laboratory move, if you need us to project manage the full relocation including fumigation, equipment decommissioning/recommissioning/calibration/validation and the level of complexity of the relocation. We can accommodate relocations in short timescales in as little as a few days. However, a large and complex relocation which requires project management and a lot of planning could need as much as six to 12 months, or even longer to plan and complete.

Our labs are very large, and we do not know where to start in terms of planning. Can you help plan and project manage our laboratory relocation?

The short answer is yes. Laboratory relocation project management is one of our main areas of specialism. Our project managers have vast experience with all types of laboratory relocation planning tasks. Whether it is completing a full asset survey and asset tagging pieces of work capturing key equipment requirements once relocated, compiling full costs for specialist equipment decommissioning/recommissioning/calibration/validation or being the linchpin between a number of key stakeholders such as the lab managers, security, OEMs and third-party engineers, relocation teams, office managers and project sponsors, we know all of the steps required to safely and successfully plan and deliver a laboratory relocation.

How long does it take to plan a laboratory relocation?

There are no set timescales for planning a laboratory relocation. We have planned lab moves in very short timescales - a few weeks - but at the same time have had teams of project managers working with our clients years in advance of their relocation. Our best advice is once you know that you are likely going to be relocating to new laboratories then get in touch and we can discuss your requirements and end goals. Once we know a bit about your requirements we can advise from there. Initially, fact finding and consultation meetings are free of charge.

We are a regulated lab. Does this make a difference as to how we need to prepare and relocate all our equipment and research?

Yes. There are a number of factors that will need to be taken in to account, such as ensuring that equipment is calibrated and validated to the correct standards or providing a full temperature audit trail of cold chain material that is being relocated.

As part of our project planning and fact finding we will liaise with key client staff such as quality assurance and laboratory managers to fully capture project requirements, provide advice and relocation solutions for you and ensure that the costs to complete correctly are captured and allowed for.

We are a large and complex lab with a lot of equipment, can you assist with the decommission/recommission/recalibration element as we will not have anyone with enough time to complete this?

This is a common undertaking for Restore Harrow Green Laboratory Services. One of our first questions to our clients for a large and complex laboratory relocation, where there is a lot of equipment that cannot just be unplugged and moved, is around the management of OEMs and third-party engineers and whether they have time to complete this themselves.

Whether there are five or 100 separate OEMs or third-party engineers to contact for costs, availability, and timescales in and amongst the relocation activity, it is a very time-consuming and onerous task to complete, especially if you have a full-time job to complete as well.

We have a great understanding of relocation requirements of equipment and what is required in terms of decommissioning and making them ‘safe’ and ‘ready’ to relocate. Therefore, we are used regularly by our clients to complete this element and ensure that the relocation is all planned and completed within the agreed timescales and to the agreed budget.

If you do have a project lead that does have time to manage this element, then we are happy to offer advice throughout the process as well as if there are any cost savings by grouping equipment or using different qualified equipment engineers.

We only have a couple of larger pieces of equipment to move within our current site. Do you complete smaller relocations?

Whether you are moving a couple of centrifuges or a full 500-person lab and office set-up, we are always happy to complete a laboratory relocation for you.