UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation

Supplementary written evidence submitted by the
Medical Research Council (UKCMRI 09b)

I understand that the Committee has received a paper from Mr Frank Dobson MP in which he refers, among other matters, to the former National Temperance Hospital on Hampstead Road, and that the Committee would like further information from the MRC on the future of this site.

The site of the former National Temperance Hospital is wholly owned by the MRC. It was purchased in 2006, at a time when the MRC first had plans to relocate the National Institute for Medical Research to central London to locate it near UCL, UCLH and other clinical facilities. As you know, these plans then changed with the proposals for UKCMRI.

As the Committee is aware, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) approved the MRC’s final business case for UKCMRI in February 2011. The business case confirmed that the return from the sale of the land would be used to support the MRC’s funding for UKCMRI. In line with government guidance, the MRC is required to maximise the financial return on its land and property when it is sold, and we are now working with the Government Property Unit and others within BIS to achieve this. Disposal of the site is currently anticipated in 2012/13 and will take into account planning conditions and the quality of offers received.

Professor Sir John Savill

Chief Executive

Medical Research Council

22 March 2011