Joel Charles is a national Conservative campaigner with a successful political and professional track record.
He was part of the Conservative campaign team that took back control of Harlow Council in 2021 from the Labour Party after a decade in opposition.
Joel became the Deputy Leader of Harlow Council and was the Cabinet Member for Business and Community Resilience. He developed the council’s Economic Development Strategy to focus on job creation, accessing new targeted investment in infrastructure and how to establish a new industry base that will help enhance the prosperity of the town. Joel also developed a new Community Safety Strategy for Harlow to confront anti-social behaviour and crime. In 2019, he stood as the Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for St Helens North. Joel managed to reduce the incumbent Labour Member of Parliament’s majority by over 6,000 votes.
He is currently the Harlow Council Cabinet Member for Public Protection, tackling anti-social behaviour and crime in the town, and a district councillor representing Old Harlow Ward, recently securing re-election with 54 per cent of the vote.
Away from politics, Joel has a successful career in the charitable and private sector. He was the Deputy Chief Executive of an adult social care charity which also established a venture capital fund that invested in health-tech start-ups. Joel has been involved at the highest level of policy development, working with the Rt Hon Damien Green MP, Lord O’Shaughnessy and Lord Willetts to develop a national strategy to extend healthy life expectancy in later life. In his most recent role as the Director of Policy, Communications and Public Affairs for a UK and Irish business group, he influenced Government policy in both countries, and wrote a policy pamphlet on the levelling up agenda and a paper focused on how the Treasury could further stimulate economic growth.
During the pandemic, Joel was an NHS Volunteer Responder, delivering food and prescriptions to vulnerable people. He was given the opportunity to become a national media spokesperson for the Royal Voluntary Service to highlight the success of the initiative. In that role, Joel was interviewed by Radio 4 and provided comments to several national papers to promote the work of NHS Volunteer Responders.
As the Senior Parliamentary Researcher to Sir Julian Brazier TD, the then MP for Canterbury, he drafted policy ideas as part of the shadow transport team on the economic regulation of airline operators, aviation complaints and airport expansion ahead of the 2010 General Election.
Joel studied at the University of Kent where he achieved a degree in politics.