Impression of how the new research lab could look in King’s Cross

• SURELY the answer to your article (Lab too ‘ugly’ for spot near St Pancras? March 4) is without a doubt “yes”.

Our neighbourhood in Bloomsbury has a long history of life-saving medical research. An innovative lab bringing more jobs and saving lives is to be applauded.

But Belgrove House’s replacement will stick out like a sore thumb, and Cllr Oliver Cooper, who you quoted, is right to ask for better in marrying our past with our future, not throwing one out for the other.

We shouldn’t have to play off the benefits to life sciences against the harm to our invaluable heritage. Other buildings in Bloomsbury have managed to avoid that choice.

The Zayed Centre for Research on Rare Disease in Children on Guilford Street hosts cutting-edge laboratories in beautiful, sympathetic, architecture.

The National ENT & Eastman Dental hospitals on Huntley Street matches the iconic red-brick mansion blocks around it.

But this new building is completely out of place next to King’s Cross and St Pancras stations, which should indeed be a Unesco World Heritage Site.

The renovations of those stations have preserved their heritage while building world-class modern facilities.

That should be the golden standard, and Camden must urgently rethink sacrificing our heritage at the price of new development. It doesn’t have to be that way.

PIERRE ANDREWS,
WC1