A GROUP of food scientists who resigned to establish their own centre following the closure of the Torry food research laboratory in Aberdeen have been awarded almost #500,000 in Government cash.

The money will be used to fund research into food hygiene and consumer perceptions, including the study of e-coli, BSE, and salmonella.

The Scottish Higher Education Funding Council - which awarded the cash - said the facility would provide essential information to the Government, industry, and consumer groups.

However, a Labour MP, who is leading a campaign to have the civil servant who sounded the death-knell for Torry sacked, said it demonstrated the ludicrousness of the closure decision.

The research team, based at the Robert Gordon University, was one of 17 projects to benefit from #7.5m of SHEFC money.

It will receive #430,000 to provide a research centre combining expertise in food hygiene, food properties, dietetics, and nutrition.

It will complement further work demanded by the Agriculture Select Committee last month into why Scotland appears to be more prone to food poisoning cases, such as the Lanarkshire e-coli outbreak, than other parts of the UK.

The money was welcomed by the researchers but questions remain about what prompted the closure of the facility at Torry.

It was one of several establishments funded by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to be centralised at the Central Science Laboratory at Sand Hutton, near York in 1996.

Only seven of the 70 Torry scientists accepted the offer of relocating and it was only following a cross-party effort that a further 30 of the staff were transferred to other laboratories in Aberdeen.

When work began on Sand Hutton four years ago, its estimated cost was #63m. By the time the facility was completed, costs had more than doubled. Some former Torry staff believe they were the victims of budget-cutting panic.

Microbiologist Dr Ian Millar, a member of the RGU research team, said: ''We chose to resign and set-up this centre ourselves.

''The CSL stitched us up and cooked the books to make Torry look uneconomic. Within a year, they were announcing that Torry was going to close. A lot of expertise was lost because a lot of people didn't want to move.''

Mr Charles Clarke, Labour MP for Norwich South, where another CSL research centre was threatened with closure, conceded there was a certain irony in public money funding research which would otherwise have been carried out at Torry.

He told The Herald: ''In the world of competitive tendering for Government funded research contracts, this grant clearly shows that money follows the quality researchers, and it's therefore ludicrous to try to move researchers around for reasons of bureaucratic convenience.''

Mr Clarke has written to Agriculture Secretary Jack Cunningham claiming that the events at Sand Hutton have ''destroyed any confidence in the integrity'' of MAFF permanent secretary Richard Packer.

His letter said the situation ''raised serious issues about the financial management relationship between MAFF and its agency the CSL.

Other projects to receive SHEFC cash include a study of the environmental reclamation of ''brownfield'' sites by researchers from Edinburgh and Napier universities, and a Glasgow University study into the economics and production of renewable electricity sources.

SHEFC chief executive John Sizer said: ''The future health and wealth of the nation depend on our ability to take the lead in emerging technologies so that Scottish businesses can compete effectively in global markets.''