Green research centre to close

Warren Spring Laboratory, the Government's top environmental research centre near Stevenage, Hertfordshire, is to close with the loss of about 130 jobs, it was disclosed yesterday.

Michael Heseltine, President of the Board of Trade, said some of its 270 staff would be transferred to the Atomic Energy Authority's laboratories at Harwell, Oxfordshire. Chris Smith, Labour's environment spokesman, described it as 'a crude cost-cutting measure'.