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Camden New Journal - by RICHARD OSLEY
Published: 6 December 2007

The National Temperance Hospital

Could empty hospital be turned into new estate?

CONTINUING silence over the future of a crumbling landmark building owned by the players behind the Somers Town super-lab has prompted speculation over a housing deal.
The Medical Research Council bought the near-derelict National Temperance Hospital in Hampstead Road in March 2006 in their abortive first attempt to move the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) into central London.
Despite spending £28 million on the 0.9 acre site and a further £800,000 on its development, the MRC was rapidly forced to admit that the site was too small.
But news of the MRC’s purchase of Brill Place brought calls for it to ‘stop acting like an absentee landlord’ and build affordable homes on the Hampstead Road site.
Regent’s Park councillor Theo Blackwell said yesterday: “They have just become a massive landowner in the Somers Town and Regent’s Park area, and they will need to meet the affordable homes target. I’d like to see more affordable homes in my ward. That building is derelict.”
And last night Holborn and St Pancras MP Frank Dobson joined the fray. He said: “I was in favour of Brill Place being affordable housing but we haven’t prevailed. Now we have got to press and press for at least a large part of the Temperance Hospital site to go for social housing.”
Although there has been speculation that the site could form part of a ‘planning gain’ housing deal with the council to compensate for the absence of housing in Somers Town, the MRC has refused to comment on the hospital’s fate.
A spokesman said yesterday: “The plans for the National Temperance site have yet to be finalised.”

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