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Camden New Journal - By PAUL KEILTHY
Published: 24 January 2008

Minister snubs plea for talks on lab plan

MINISTERS have snubbed Town Hall chiefs by refusing to discuss the £500 million medical research centre proposed for Somers Town, campaigners and councillors said this week.
Housing Minister Yvette Cooper has rejected approaches by Camden Council Lib Dem leader Keith Moffitt to discuss the sale by the government of a 3.6 acre site behind the British Library to a consortium led by the Medical Research Council.
According to Cllr Moffitt, Ms Cooper’s staff initially agreed to a meeting but pulled out, claiming that discussions over the site could conflict with her role as the ultimate arbiter if any planning disputes arose over the land.
Although plans for the centre were announced by Prime Minister Gordon Brown in December, both he and other government ministers have declined to discuss the sale despite requests, dating from last summer, from the New Journal, the Lib Dem-Conservative coalition running Camden or the Labour opposition group.
The refusal to discuss the decision to house high-security laboratories on a site the council had identified for at least partial use as social housing has infuriated the coalition leadership, not least because it is only yards from the Town Hall’s front door.
Cllr Moffitt said: “I am extremely unhappy that I’ve been pressing for a meeting with Yvette Cooper for months, and only at the last moment has she raised her planning role. This is completely unacceptable.”
Labour group leader Councillor Anna Stewart wrote to Ms Cooper in September requesting a rethink on the sale but received no response. She said this week that ministers’ silence was “disappointing” but described Cllr Moffitt’s actions as “too little, too late”.
She added: “Government have made a decision to balance a world-class institution against the need for housing.”
Ms Cooper’s official spokesman said it was “just not policy” to discuss the minister’s meeting programme and would neither confirm nor deny that meetings had been agreed with the council.
He said: “There is a big programme of work across government to bring more public sector land for housing but also to support jobs and regeneration as well. We don’t comment on specific cases.”

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