SCIENTISTS should take over the Health Protection Agency’s facility at Porton Down and run it as a co-operative, says Salisbury’s MP John Glen.

He has written to Health Department Minister Ann Milton arguing the case for keeping the centre for Emergency Preparedness and Response where it is and saving the jobs of all 800 people who depend on it.

He told her a survey suggested that three-quarters of CEPR staff would not move to Harlow in Essex, where the HPA board wants to relocate a large part of the organisation.

And he told the Journal: “Even if half do eventually go, you can’t just place an advert for a microbiologist from Harlow with 20 years’ experience and expect to find 50 of them.”

The MP intends to pursue the issue at a meeting with HPA chief executive Justin McCracken on Thursday (24th).

On Monday, at a four-hour meeting with the centre’s interim director Dr Miles Carroll, he was told that a 1,200-page business plan has gone to the Health Department, and a decision is expected at the end of the summer.

“Their basic argument is that if you are spending money to upgrade Porton you may as well spend it in Harlow and have a fresh new facility,” he said.

Mr McCracken claims it would benefit the HPA to have three facilities close together. The others are in north London and Hertfordshire.

But the MP said it would be more sensible to carry out the long-awaited investment in Porton.

Moving could prove to be a logistical nightmare, with two sets of staff operating in parallel during the transition.

It would be costly to replace the high security containment facilities used to evaluate vaccines and antivirals. And the CEPR’s close working relationship with neighbouring Dstl, which includes the transfer of dangerous pathogens, would be disrupted.

Mr Glen said the CEPR is “an international centre of excellence” which makes 80 per cent of its money from contracts with pharmaceutical companies and foreign governments.

It could be a “prime candidate for becoming a co-operative led by its internationally respected and experienced scientists”.

Its income from royalties, contract research and the provision of services would cover its costs.

“It is absolutely ludicrous, at a time when government can't afford to spend money, not to consider a lower cost option.”

A CEPR spokesman said: “This would be a matter for the Health Department and the government.”

A Unite union spokesman said: “We would be willing to explore any option that kept jobs at Porton.”