Research organizations are condemning Cambridge University's decision to shelve plans for a multimillion-dollar primate center.

The center was designed to bring together neuroscientists from Cambridge and lure researchers from elsewhere. But the project was dogged by controversy from the start. A public inquiry in late 2002 recommended against building the center because it was not of “national importance,” but deputy Prime Minister John Prescott last November granted the university permission to proceed.

The South Cambridgeshire district council twice turned down permission to build the site on grounds that protests by animal-rights campaigners would disrupt traffic and become a nuisance to local residents. The proposed site was close to Huntingdon Life Sciences, a research company that tests pharmaceutical products on animals, and that has repeatedly been targeted by animal-rights activists.

On 27 January, the university announced that spiraling costs had forced it to shelve the project. Even though the university had secured a projected US$44 million cost from public and private sources, several factors including extra security expenses had contributed to a rise in costs of $14 million.

“This is a serious blow for British medical research,” says Mark Matfield, director of the UK Research Defence Society. “These delays and security concerns were caused by orchestrated threats and intimidation,” Matfield says. In a statement, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry called for legislation “so that action can be taken against the [animal-rights] terrorists.”