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Keep MRC research centre away from London targets
• YOUR report (Superlab developers slammed, July 31) contains a most interesting quote from the Medical Research Council’s property chief Ken Tucker regarding the proposed medical research centre on the Brill Place site.
Mr Tucker writes in a letter to Camden Council: “If our plans for the UKCMRI (UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation) at Brill Place are not successful then the National Temperance Hospital site will be used for that purpose, either as a refurbishment or redevelopment”.
This directly contradicts the consortium’s persistent claim that the Temperance site is too small for the research centre. If we take Mr Tucker at his word, the obvious solution to the very strong local objections to the building of the research centre on the Brill Place site would be for the research centre to be built on the Temperance site and the Brill Place site to be developed in accordance with the council’s planning brief, which is for a mixed commercial and residential development with a substantial proportion of affordable housing.
However, neither the Brill Place nor the Temperance sites are suitable for a research centre which will be dealing with dangerous viruses, although the Temperance site would be less of a target for terrorists than the Brill Place land which is on top of the Eurostar terminal and the British Library.
The ideal solution would be for the research centre to be built away from heavily built-up areas but with ready access to London. Happily the consortium already own such a site, namely, 47 acres in Mill Hill which is a mere 20 minutes by train into King’s Cross. If that was done, the land the consortium already own in Camden could be purchased by Camden Council for social housing.
ROBERT HENDERSON
Chalton Street, NW1
Valid work?
• IT is a pity that Camden Council has not asked the Medical Research Council for an independently-conducted, systematic review of the planned research at the proposed UKCMRI at Brill Place before allowing it to go ahead. No one seems to have asked this question. It would be important to see that there was sound and rigorous evidence for the research, particularly as it will include a very large animal research facility. It is in the public interest to see that such research is scientifically valid and justified.
Most animal research is approved without carrying out systematic reviews first. There is a petition about it at: http://petitions.pm. gov.uk/methodology/
CHRIS SMITH
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