At first, during the meeting, the animal rights individuals were even-tempered, and held no obvious open hostility to the district councillors present; or so it may have seemed.

On Thursday 16 March 1995, 43 year old carpenter Dennis Gough, of Enfield, fell 30 feet off scaffolding.

[10] Th inauguration took place on Monday 28 April 1997, with around 500 guests, including Martin Bangemann from the European Commission.

[11] Smith, Kline & French had been headquartered in Welwyn Garden City; it merged with Beecham Group in 1989.

The site was built by SmithKline Beecham, which became GSK in December 2000 when it merged with Glaxo Wellcome.

Beecham Pharmaceuticals previously had its Medicinal Research Centre on the site.,[13] where it worked on hypertension and gastrointestinal disease.

The site was visited by the Princess Royal on the afternoon of 3 February 2000,[14] following on in the morning from attending a meeting about the new Basic Skills Agency.

At the time of the merger, the USA was accounting for 45% of GSK's sales, with 33% in Europe, and 22% in the rest of the world.

[15] The site was the Official Laboratory Services Provider for the 2012 Summer Olympics; every medallist and 50% of competitors were tested by GSK there.

[16] Since 2010, the Health Protection Agency had wanted to move scientific staff to the GSK site in Essex.