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CSR NEWS: King’s Cross super-lab UKCMRI gets go-ahead

Katie Davies Wednesday, 20 October, 2010
16:00 PM

A large scientific research centre planned for King’s Cross has been given the go-ahead under the Comprehensive Spending Review.

The UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation (UKCMRI) planned for a site behind the British Library on Brill Place will go ahead Chancellor George Osborne has promised.

The centre – a £500 million joint initiative of Cancer Research UK, the Medical Research Council, University College London and the Wellcome Trust – has been confirmed to receive a £220million Government grant while other areas get cut.

Scientists from around the world have backed the project which could bring cures for illnesses like cancer and strokes.

Planning permission is currently being sought for the site from Camden Council.

As well as hundreds of backers, hundreds of opponents have rallied against the scheme.

Many residents in Somers Town have called for the land to be made into housing or park area for residents living there.

They are being backed by local Labour councillor Roger Robinson, several Green Party representatives and Conservative Camden and Barnet London Assembly member, Brian Coleman.

Cllr Coleman, who also sits on Barnet Council said in response to George Osborne’s House of Commons address.

“I am extremely disappointed with the Government’s decision to press ahead with construction of the Centre for Medical Research and Innovation,” he said. “It is the wrong project in the wrong place. I shall seek to do what I can to make sure these plans do not come to fruition.”

MP Slams Lab

http://www.camdennewjournal.com/news/2010/sep/green-mp-slams-super-lab-plans-brill-place

Green MP slams super lab plans for Brill Place

by DAN CARRIER

CAROLINE Lucas, the first Green MP in Britain, has waded into a planning row over a project that could bring some of the world’s leading scientists under one roof in Somers Town.

Camden Council’s planning committee are due to consider a project to build a new research laboratory in Brill Place, opposite St Pancras train station, this autumn.

The application, put together by a consortium of University College London, the Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust and Cancer Research UK, will house 1,500 scientists and the body boasts they will be tackling ailments that kill millions each year.

But at a visit to the site on Thursday, Ms Lucas attacked the lands as wholly unsuitable for the site and warned that the big research bodies behind the scheme should not be allowed to bully people living near by.

She told the New Journal: “It is clearly not the right place for it. It will completely shut out the light for neighbouring homes and also block out light in the area’s only bit of green space.”

She said the council had the moral authority to dismiss the plans as its own planning brief had earmarked the site for housing. She added: “The planning brief says it should be 50 per cent housing – and these plans have none. It could be a really good housing project and a permeable site. It could be something beautiful.”

Ms Lucas also questioned what benefits the plans would have for those living in the area. She said: “Somers Town is an area that suffers badly from overcrowding and poor health and needs to address these issues. The UKMRCI could be built anywhere. It is not clear why they should be here. They could even stay in their current site in Mill Hill – they need to offer much better reasons for wanting to move than they have already.”

A spokeswoman for the UKMRCI say bringing teams under one roof is the only way to tackle serious illnesses. They said: “In the last decade, it has become clear that progress in biomedical science requires scientists from different disciplines in biology to work together.”

A new planning pressure group called Somers Town and St Pancras Planning Action are holding a public meeting on Monday at 7pm at the Somers Town Community Centre, Ossulton Street, to respond to the plans.