What's going on with Leamington's megalab?: councillor wants answers over plans for Covid-19 testing site in town

The Government announcement that Leamington was one of two places selected as a site for a laboratory was made in November last year.

The laboratories will, in the immediate term, be dedicated to Covid-19 testing for the National Testing Programme and when at full capacity, each lab will be able to process up to 300,000 tests a day.

It is understood that the lab in Leamington be built at the old Wolsley buildings off Tachbrook Road/Queensway and that it could create up to about 2,000 jobs.

But other than this, little more information has been made public.

Cllr Chilvers said: "I've been trying to dig on the megalabs for months without much success.

"The department of health and social care and the companies like Deloitte that they've contracted some of the preparation to don't seem to want anything in the public domain.

"What they do say they normally want kept confidential for no obvious reason.

"On the business contract side of things it seems like a brick wall and on the transport side it looks like they can get round planning for the first year or so of operation - by that time it will be too late

"Last November the government announced that one of two new megalabs would be in Leamington, creating 1500 jobs in our area and providing testing capacity.

"They announced that the site would be in the old Wolseley building off Tachbrook Road.

"But since then it's all gone very quiet.

"What's been happening?

“Back in November there was rightly a warm welcome about the jobs the megalab would create in Leamington.

"But there seems to be undue secrecy around the Megalab in Leamington. I want to know that local businesses will have a fair shot at bidding for contracts and I want to know what the transport arrangements will be for the thousands of people travelling in and out of the site.”

“But despite asking for months I can’t get a straight public answer on either of these questions. Indeed I’m told that the lab will be initially allowed to bypass the normal public planning consultation which would have included discussion on travel and carparking issues.”

“We all want to keep moving fast on this to increase our national testing capacity, but there’s just no need for this secretive approach.

"They need to open up and let local people know what's going on. ”