Welcome to the Consultation Website for Belgrove House and Acorn House.

This site presents our aspirations for an exciting new project for Camden; a life science Discovery Hub and UK HQ as a centre of excellence for MSD UK at Belgrove House along with affordable housing at Acorn House. It involves two interlinked sites within the King’s Cross ward of the London Borough of Camden – Belgrove House is located on Euston Road and fronts onto the King’s Cross Square and Acorn House is located a four minute walk away on Gray’s Inn Road.

We have now updated our website to include virtual exhibition boards where you can view the proposals for both sites in detail, see the consultation that has been undertaken to date and review the feedback that we have received so far. This is also an opportunity for you to give us your feedback on the plans ahead of a planning application being submitted to Camden Council at the end of August 2020.

The virtual exhibition boards can be viewed here.

An exceptional package of public benefits

Belgrove House has been designed for a socially responsible life-sciences company.

The type of tenant we believe we will attract will be a world leader in the discovery, development and delivery of life saving vaccines.

The proposed building design aims to engage and include the local community through a publicly accessible auditorium, café and ground floor and innovative windows giving passers-by sight of the activities inside and insight into the building’s climate design. Similarly, the chosen tenant will engage the local community with a ‘strong outreach programme to inspire Camden’s scientist young and old’.

Potential for:

  1.    Knowledge Quarter building
  2.   Affordable homes
  3.   Financial contribution to Affordable Housing Fund
  4.   Affordable workspace
  5.   New step-free Tube access to King’s Cross station
  6.   Increased pavement width to Euston Road and Argyle Square
  7.   Public Realm Improvements
  8.   Improved urban connections
  9.   Highly sustainable design
  10. Publicly accessible ground floor including event, meeting, exhibition and education spaces as well as a café
  11. Publicly accessible lower ground floor auditorium with event and meeting spaces
  12. Community outreach programme led by developer and tenant
  13. A new world-class architectural backdrop to King’s Cross Square

Before and After of the proposed life sciences building at Belgrove House

Before and After of the proposed new underground entrance on the corner of Belgrove House

Before and After of the proposed Acorn House from Gray’s Inn Road

A whole life carbon approach

A whole life carbon approach would see the building’s carbon footprint minimised substantially. Whereas the industry average for a building’s embodied carbon is 1,100kg CO2/m2, the Belgrove House current estimate is 810 kg CO2/m2, thereby saving 290kgCO2/m2 or 7,250 tonnes CO2.

To put that in perspective, when it was last counted the population of the King’s Cross ward was roughly 11,843 people across 4,594 households. A saving of 7,250 tonnes of CO2 equals the annual carbon budget of 10% of the population of the King’s Cross ward.

What would a saving of 7,250 tonnes of CO2 look like?

7,250 X 1 ton CO2 spheres
(with each sphere having a 10 m diameter)

7,350 X return flights to New York
(with each flight using about 986kg of CO2)

Feedback

We hope that this website will give a useful introduction to our aspirations for the project. We would welcome feedback by responding to our survey, which you can find here. You can also get in touch with a member of the project team on:

0800 307 7614

belgroveacorn@londoncommunications.co.uk