Home >> News >> 2010 >> Apr >> Revealed: National Temperance Hospital sale will pay for controversial Brill Place superlab
Revealed: National Temperance Hospital sale will pay for controversial Brill Place superlab
Thursday April 1, 2010
By DAN CARRIER
VITAL cash to fund a proposed research centre in King’s Cross will come from selling the derelict National Temperance Hospital site nearby to the highest bidder, the New Journal can reveal.
The news will come as a blow to campaigners who had hoped the hospital site in Hampstead Road would house a new secondary school or social housing in return for Camden Council giving permission to build the super-lab.
The Brill Place site of the new lab, which will house more than 1,200 research scientists, had been earmarked for social housing and a park.
The cash injection was confirmed by Prime Minister Gordon Brown at a meeting in Euston Road on Thursday.
He was joined by business, innovation and skills secretary Lord Mandelson, science minister Lord Drayson and health secretary Andy Burnham.
Mr Brown said: “There is nothing more important to the future of our society and our economy than what we are setting in motion. I believe the project we are discussing today will transform lives, will make for a stronger economy, will put us at the forefront of research around the world and will give people a huge amount of hope about the future.”
The lab will provide Britain’s top scientists with an integrated centre to work on cures which could offer new hope to sufferers of illnesses such as cancer, strokes and heart disease.
But Holborn and St Pancras Labour MP Frank Dobson said: “Camden should not give planning permission for the laboratory unless the [hospital] site is used for housing.”
He warned that if the hospital site, owned by the Medical Research Council, was sold its property value would be much lower than the price paid for it.
Green Party candidate Natalie Bennett said: “It is extremely disappointing that this is not going to be part of the planning application or development.”
She added that the council should now put the UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation – the body which hopes to build the lab – under pressure to ensure adequate compensation for the loss of the Brill Place site. Ms Bennett added: “The plans are grossly unsuitable. They are a third too big for the site, and sadly it is pretty impossible to alleviate the damage this development will do to Somers Town.”
The government cash will include money raised from the sale of a Medical Research Council site in Mill Hill.
Pictured: National Temperance Hospital in Hampstead Road
Comments
National Temperence Hospital
Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 2010-04-14 11:23.Rather than turning this hospital building into housing maybe Camden council should take back ex-council properties, there are a large number of ex-council houses which were acquired by tennants under the 'Right to buy' scheme and the landlords are absent,they are just using the properties for leasing out for making money, however these private landlords are setting rent rates at prices people cannot afford and therefore some are left empty, others are empty because the landlords are not able to fund repairs or find a buyer, the council should take back empty houses and take property off absent landlords where properties are left empty, the council should also scrap its plans of selling off council housing too. The National Temperence Hospital should be bought back under the UCL group and reopened to relieve strain of its main hospital, or else move private wards to the site which would be more commercially viable
It could go anywhere
Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 2010-04-05 15:29.Dear Mr/Ms Anonymous,
The research centre could go pretty well anywhere - or indeed far more practically stay on the 33 acre site it now has at Mill Hill.
The land on Brill Place, however, is the only space left in Somers Town for housing and community facilities.
And this won't provide new employment beyond perhaps that for a few security guards/cleaners etc - existing projects will simply be transferred into the centre.
Natalie Bennett
Green Party candidate, Holborn and St Pancras
Camden residents do not want this lab!
Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 2010-04-03 04:38.We do not want the lab on safety and security grounds. Al Qaida have already bombed Kings Cross and a terror attack against the lab is possible. This means too that vulnerable communities could be targeted by MI5 as could much of Camden's population. A "Porton Down" lab should never be built alongside St Pancras International.
Pompous Gordon Brown in cahoots with corporation
Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 2010-04-02 21:31.I can't countenance Gordon Brown saying "There is nothing more important to the future of our country and our economy than what we are setting in motion here"
He has given more money from our debt saddled economy to a multi national corporation who are cheating their way into developing in Camden without complying with the planning laws.
How about improving people's health through food?
How about improving our public transport infrastructure so we can take polluting vehicles off the road? ( Ah, I suspect GB would tell me, the Government have bought the Temperance hospital because it'll make building the new planned high speed rail link to Brum much easier for them - GB scratches medical developers backs, medical developers scratch GB's back)
How about reducing society's use of carcinogenic chemicals?
I think these agendas are more important for the future of our country and our economy than a big new shiny building for a pharmaceutical manufacturer.
research centre in Somers Town
Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 2010-04-02 21:13.I live in Somers Town and think that the proposed development is a proposal to sacrifice the health of the residents of Somers Town by imposing a five year sentence of noise pollution and disruption of construction; followed by a lifetime of darkness, noise from the interior air system of the 13 storey metal box in which research will be carried out. The relative peace and tranquility of that area as it is compared to say, the Euston Road, or Camden, or the coming huge development at Kings Cross, adjacent to this site, will be lost forever - poor people will be have their lives changed irrevocably for the worse. I see the need for medical research - I do not see the need for this laboratory to be situated in a residential area.
As a citizen of Camden I do not want this. I want to see more social housing.
research centre in somers town
Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 2010-04-01 19:54.nobody living in somers town could think it would be better to have more social housing than what may become one of the world's greatest medical research centres and a major provider of high paying employment.
dobson serves camden poorly. if he thinks more council housing should be available, perhaps he should vacate his own council flat. they were not built to provide subsidised housing for rich families like his.
a shame the new journal is too beholden to labour, rather than camden citizens, to make any of these points.
One of the world's greatest
Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 2010-04-02 21:34.One of the world's greatest medical centres?
Would you want it right next door to you? Have you seen it? It's 13 stories high. It's going to over shadow and dwarf every house in the vicinity. Forever.
How rich is Frank Dobson? And how do you know?
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