Camden News: Bio-security

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Camden News - by PAUL KEILTHY
Published: 1 May 2008

MP calls for bio-security assurance

BIO-security at the new £500 million superlab planned for Somers Town must be guaranteed before councillors consider a planning application, MPs urged ministers in the Commons.
During a Commons committee discussion of last year’s disastrous leak of foot-and-mouth disease from laboratories at Pirbright in Surrey, MP Phil Willis tackled junior minister Lord McKenzie of Luton over plans to build the lab on land behind the British Library. He asked if the statutory approval of the Health and Safety Executive should be given before a planning application is lodged.
Lord McKenzie replied: “That is not the way it operates at the moment... One would need to think about some of the national security issues around that.” This week, residents met representatives of organisations planning research at the superlab .
Professor Malcolm Grant, provost of University College London, a key partner in the project, told the New Journal the benefits to cancer sufferers would outweigh the loss of land earmarked for housing and the potential security issues.

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