Plans for laboratory ignore local people’s needs

Published: 18 February 2010

• SOME of our worst fears about the plans for the medical laboratory on Brill Place (the land behind the British Library), were confirmed last week at the development control forum. 

It is clear that the UKCMRI consortium plans to build an enormous, unattractive, building that will loom over long-established local homes and entirely fail to fit into the area.

The spokesmen had no answer to the question as to why the building was turning its back on the area, with the grand entrance (and very limited open space on the site) facing St Pancras station, while the working, industrial parts of the building are in close proximity to local residents – including the load dock right opposite the sheltered housing in Monica Shaw Court.

There was no sign of accommodation to the needs of the area, with suggestions that the National Temperance Hospital site on Hampstead Road, also owned by the consortium, be devoted to desperately-needed housing, being firmly rebuffed.

The only concession was the vague suggestion that the facility “might” include a healthy living centre meant to service the local area, although it was admitted there was no real idea what this would actually be or if it would happen at all.

It was clear there was no intention of genuine consultation or of listening to the people for whom the consortium claims it wants to be “a good neighbour”.

Now it is over to the council planners, who we hope will be negotiating hard with the developer before the planning application is made (set for May). But there’s no doubt that anything like the current plans will be passionately and robustly resisted by the Somers Town community.
NATALIE BENNETT
Green Party Somers Town campaigner
CANDY UDWIN
Somers Town People’s Forum
Cllr ROGER ROBINSON
Labour, St Pancras and Somers Town ward

Poor crowd

• AS a resident of St Pancras and Somers Town ward, I attended Camden Council’s development control forum on February 10. 

The UKCMRI development consortium fielded their top team, including the chief executive, the Nobel-prize-winning scientific director, and the head of the MRC. They made a compelling medical/scientific case, and set out their latest thinking on planning issues. 

Local organisations also fielded a number of articulate and outspoken critics, especially of land use and planning concerns, where the developers were intensively challenged.

But the main problem was lack of attendance (around only 50) due to failings in Camden Council. 

This is probably one issue where both opponents and supporters of the plans would agree. Camden claimed there had been letters to 500 nearby addresses, while on the night (and at a previous Camden meeting on February 8) no one had received a letter. 

Attendance at the meeting was mostly made up of those notified by local groups.

St Pancras and Somers Town has more than 8,000 registered electors, and even the local electoral district has well over 2,000. Even the immediately nearby or directly adjacent blocks would have around 1,000. 

I fear Camden has failed both the local community and, for that matter, the development consortium. 

In particular the large local Bangladeshi and Somali communities were conspicuous by their absence. 

I hope the developers in coming months with their own promised consultations, and Camden after the submission of an eventual planning application, can and will do better over this locally and nationally important proposal.
PETER BRAYSHAW
Plender Street, NW1