£30m Disaster recovery centre opens in Essex

One of the UK's largest business continuity centres has opened in Essex to provide companies with seamless continuity in the event of a natural disaster or a terrorist attack.

With 75 per cent of continuity facilities based in high risk areas such as the City and Canary Wharf, the new 1,700 seat centre is strategically based in Romford, in Essex.

A large US bank based in the UK is using the facility, and was attracted to its geographic diversity and staff demographics.

‘The 7 July attacks was a classic case where transport in Central London ground to a halt,’ the spokesman said. ‘This centre offers seats outside London and our staff would have been able to travel to Romford in those circumstances.

The spokesman says business continuity is at the core of its overall strategy as it looks after financial assets and simply can not afford to go down.

He says the bank could run its entire operation from the Romford site.

‘The switch would be pretty seamless and clients would see little difference in operations besides a small downtime,’ he said. ‘Everything is backed up, staff could walk in, sit down and start working.’

Head of the FSA business continuity team John Milne attended the opening on Tuesday and said: ‘Firms need to appreciate the inherent risks in having their disaster recovery centres too close, some literally in walking distance, from their primary offices.’

The £30m, 73,000 square foot business centre has been developed by ICM Computer Group.

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