The plans for the Camden Biocontainment facility and animal testing lab have been set back today as plans to redesign the exterior of the lab were announced. HOK the architects behind the "superlab" [and Arsenal stadium] have been told by Camden Council "Your plans are not good enough". PLP have been asked to redraft the lab design plans. Gordon Brown has pledged a further £250 million.
The land on the derelict National Temperance Hospital site will be sold to help fund the lab which is already behind shedule. Housing campaigners are disappointed that council houses will not be built on the Hampstead Road site which will be sold to the highest bidder to help fund the lab.
From today the lab faces further setbacks as Camden councillors have refused to accept the design plans created by HOK. Camden Council have said that the plans do not benefit the area and have demanded they be redesigned. PLP have been called in to redraft the design for the exterior of the lab.
Frank Dobson MP for Camden was also critical of the plans by HOK.
The lab, the completion of which was meant to be in 2013 but has been moved to 2015 is set back further still due to the redrafting of the plans.
Gordon Brown visited last week and has said he will put in a further £250 million.
[Our residents facebook page was closed down for the fourth time following the visit by the PM].
Campaigning residents groups have said that vulnerable communities face persecution by MI5 due to the level 3 lab plans as part of the "war on terror".
Other campaigners have said that the lab poses a terror threat from Al Qaida and animal rights activists and do not want the lab on safety and security grounds.
Residents campaigns meetings are planned for over the next few weeks to discuss the announcements.
http://www.ukcmri.ac.uk
From today the lab faces further setbacks as Camden councillors have refused to accept the design plans created by HOK. Camden Council have said that the plans do not benefit the area and have demanded they be redesigned. PLP have been called in to redraft the design for the exterior of the lab.
Frank Dobson MP for Camden was also critical of the plans by HOK.
The lab, the completion of which was meant to be in 2013 but has been moved to 2015 is set back further still due to the redrafting of the plans.
Gordon Brown visited last week and has said he will put in a further £250 million.
[Our residents facebook page was closed down for the fourth time following the visit by the PM].
Campaigning residents groups have said that vulnerable communities face persecution by MI5 due to the level 3 lab plans as part of the "war on terror".
Other campaigners have said that the lab poses a terror threat from Al Qaida and animal rights activists and do not want the lab on safety and security grounds.
Residents campaigns meetings are planned for over the next few weeks to discuss the announcements.
http://www.ukcmri.ac.uk 
Homepage:
Comments
Hide the following comment
New Labour bringing plagues and pests to Camden with "Terror Lab".
02.04.2010 01:12
Depsite the lab site being so close to St Pancras International the British Transport Police were not told by the consortium. When they were told by locals from the estate in Somers Town they though it was a prank. They [British Transport Police] knocked on doors on the nearby estates to find out if it was true that lab was being built..no one could tell them anything. It was only when they saw a Green Party newsletter written by Sian Berry that they took it seiously and went to see Camden Council leaders to find out more about the lab and to ask why no one let them know what was being built right next to a major transport hub in a built up area. Pathogens and animals will be transported in and out of the lab posing all sorts of problems.
The newspapers then nicknamed the facility the "28 Days Later" lab [from a film about zombies who were created when animal rights activists released diseased animals from a lab, destroying Britian] and MI5 were said to have leaked security fears to the Evening Standard.
Consultations with the public have amounted to little more than leaflets dumped on tables, [or in bins] etc by the PR firm appointed who are unable to answer properly questions about the lab and who do not answer emails or letters.
A "full community consultation" in Somers Town in Camden was a disappointment as questions were answered inadequately. Stranger still the consortium used a picture of Peter Pan as a backdrop at the beginning of the meeting which residents found inappropriate and hard to understand.
Now the plans are delayed as Camden council says [rightly] that the HOK plans for the superlab are not good enough. The new architects PLP won a competition and are the new designers for a lab that will hold deadly pathogens.
Residents have said at meetings that there is little room for evacuation in the event of virus leak or terror attack and that safety and security are the main concerns.
The expensive lab plans should be scrapped altogether say residents.
Stop Camden Biocontainment lab. [Added comment.]