A government facility that became the UK’s first giant centrepiece COVID-19 testing facility has been put up for sale.
Located in Royal Leamington Spa, central England, the 220,000-square-foot Rosalind Franklin Laboratory site was the largest of its kind in the country and one of the largest in Europe.
The site, which is publicly owned by the Department of Health and Social Care, has been put on Rightmove, with the sale managed by the UK real estate service Avison Young on behalf of the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA).
75,000 Tests
The publicly owned laboratory processed its first test samples in June 2021, operating 24/7 thereafter.The UKSHA said that it was putting through around 75,000 tests per day at its peak, and results were reported directly to Test and Trace (NHS Test and Trace), the latter project which itself totalled £37 billion over two years.
The number dropped significantly, before January 2023, when the site ceased to process PCR tests for COVID-19 in response to reduced demand.
In December 2021, visiting MPs were told that each line of the laboratory could be used for testing different viruses or diseases such as genetic causes of high cholesterol and cancer screening.
The space which is now mothballed, comes with nine lab lines with associated logistics, in a self-contained secure facility.
‘You Couldn’t Make It Up’
Last year in Parliament, Leamington Labour MP Matt Western and Rosalind Franklin Laboratory critic claimed that the lab cost £1.1 billion.At the time, he also disputed that the lab processed 300,000 COVID tests a day, and claimed it was lower at 30,000 a day. The Epoch Times has not been able to independently verify this claim.
Recently, Mr. Western said the latest sale needs further investigation.
“We were told from the outset that this lab would bring 2,000 jobs to our town and that post-pandemic, it would be used as a general medical diagnostic testing centre,” he told Warwick Nub News.
“However, we now see it has been listed on Rightmove,” he added.
“You couldn’t make it up. It has cost at least £455 million of taxpayers’ money, and it seems that the government are abandoning its plan of only 18 months ago.
“There are some serious questions that need answering and I will do all I can to demand the answers we deserve.”
The government said that as the laboratory has been mothballed rather than closed down, no closing down costs have been incurred.
“For as long as the laboratory is mothballed, the equipment is being left in situ to minimise the time required to restart operations if needed. As such, none of the laboratory’s equipment has been repurposed for use by the National Health Service at this stage,” Conservative MP Maria Caulfield said in September.
Marc Merel, director of Testing at UKHSA, told The Epoch Times by email that The Rosalind Franklin Laboratory “has played a vital role in helping the nation recover from the pandemic.”
VMIC
Last year, the Vaccines Manufacturing and Innovation Centre (VMIC) in Oxfordshire, a facility that received at least £215 million of government funding was sold for an undisclosed fee to Catalent, a multinational pharma biotech company with plans to invest approximately £120 million to develop the site.VMIC’s original goal “was to promote, develop, and accelerate the growth of the UK vaccine industry.”
Catalent said that it wanted to complete the building of the facility and equip it with “state-of-the-art capabilities for the development and manufacture of biologic therapies and vaccines, including mRNA, proteins and other advanced modalities.”
