Scientists at Oxford University have been given assurances that work on a controversial animal research laboratory will resume within weeks and be completed this year.
Secret talks are taking place between the university, senior police officers, government ministers and a construction company which has agreed to take on the project despite the security risks as the final preparations are made before work resumes on the £18m research facility.
Construction was halted last July after animal rights activists targeted the contractors Montpellier in a campaign which involved sending threatening letters to shareholders, attacking directors' cars and threatening to publish its list of investors on the internet.
But Oxford University is adamant its project will go ahead. Detailed plans to protect the 1,000 workers who will descend on the site towards the end of this month, directors and shareholders of the firm involved are being drawn up. They include a scheme to vet construction workers before they are allowed on the site in case the firm has been infiltrated by animal rights activists.
For any contractor a key concern is insurance, according to Dr Simon Festing from the pro-vivisection group, the Research Defence Society. Some contractors who have been approached have asked to be insured against any fall in shares which results from the protests and possible intimidation by extremists. But the Association of British Insurers said no firm would be able to cover such an unknown quantity.
While the talks with the unnamed construction firm continued yesterday the skeleton of the building in Oxford's South Parks Road was empty save for one security guard.
Stuck to the 10ft fences erected around the shell of the building are details of the injunction won by the university last September which stops protesters gathering outside and intimidating builders and construction staff. The injunction limits protests to Thursday afternoons and also bars animal rights activists from intimidating individuals involved in the project. When won last year, it marked the university's fight back against the protesters.
Professor Tipu Aziz, a consultant neurosurgeon who will move his Parkinson's Disease research on primates to the new lab once it is finished, said the laboratory had to be completed and he had no fears that the protests would prevent that. "It is not just for Oxford, it is a national asset," he said.
The suspension of work last July was a coup for Speak, the animal rights group opposed to the building of the laboratory.
