Our Community

Marlow; it’s all about the location

 

In our last couple of blog posts, we have discussed the importance of our communities (including our local community) and also how we are helping our people with their relocation needs. So, we thought it fitting to talk more in this blog post about why we chose Marlow and more specifically Globe Park as our home for The Ralph.

 

Right from the start of The Ralph journey back in 2014 we broadly knew where we wanted the hospital to be. Over the past few years, we have considered many locations for our hospital before we settled on Marlow in Buckinghamshire. For those of you who are not familiar with Marlow, it is one of the true beauty spots of the area and is located on the banks of the River Thames in South Buckinghamshire. Only 5 miles outside of Maidenhead and 33 miles west of central London, it is easily accessible by road (M40 and M4). It also has a train station with good links to Paddington and the planned cross-rail system. The bustling market town also has a well-equipped high street with a great selection of shops, cafes, restaurants and bars.

And just on the outskirts of the town centre is Globe Park.

 

It ticked so many boxes for what we were looking for:

  • Globe Park is a hop, skip and a jump from the A404 which runs between the M4 and the M40 making the hospital very accessible to clients and other visitors.
  • We needed a big enough space to accommodate us for now and also for the years to come. And space to include our wellbeing room, gym and on-call room which are ‘must-haves’ in our book.
  • As well as a location that is easily accessible for our people and our pet-carers, we knew that we just had to have outdoor space for our patients. And now, we have a good amount of ‘green’ space for our patients, and also our people to enjoy.
  • As well as having some great wellbeing initiatives on site, being part of Globe Park gives us access to the nearby gyms (with great corporate rates from one of them), yoga and cross-fit studio and various other organised activities.
  • There is soon to be a large hotel just a 2-minute walk from the hospital. This will enable our pet-carers the option to stay close by and overnight if required. As well as providing our people with comfortable overnight accommodation for when they need to stay locally.

As well as some great facilities, Globe Park has a wonderful community spirit. All of the businesses on the park reach out to one another and do their best to support park-wide plans and schemes. The Globe Park management team organise regular lunchtime nature walks that anyone can join. And the soon-to-be installed cycle scheme means that access to the high street or to the river will become much more available (and we will have dedicated outdoor space for cycling Ralphers to park their two wheelers!).

We only have 4 short months to go until we open and we really can’t wait. Having our home in Marlow definitely feels right to us. And being able to afford our patients, pet-carers and people so many fantastic opportunities makes us realise how it was worth the wait to find just the right location!

 See you again soon and take care.

 The Ralph Team

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