Victoria Quay is a Scottish Government building situated in Leith

Leith

-South Leith v. North Leith:Up until the late 16th century Leith , comprised two separate towns on either side of the river....

, Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

. Designed by Robert Matthew Johnson Marshall, construction began in 1993 and the building was officially opened by the Queen on Monday 1 July 1996. Civil servants began moving to Victoria Quay in phases from autumn 1995-1996 before the official opening ceremony.

The building was constructed on redeveloped dockland and housed parts of the Scottish Office

Scottish Office

The Scottish Office was a department of the United Kingdom Government from 1885 until 1999, exercising a wide range of government functions in relation to Scotland under the control of the Secretary of State for Scotland...

 prior to 1999. With the advent of parliamentary devolution

Devolution

Devolution is the statutory granting of powers from the central government of a sovereign state to government at a subnational level, such as a regional, local, or state level. Devolution can be mainly financial, e.g. giving areas a budget which was formerly administered by central government...

 in 1999 it was transferred to the then Scottish Executive, now Scottish Government. 2,200 civil servants work at Victoria Quay making it the Scottish Government's largest building in terms of size and occupation.

Construction of this building kick-started Leith's regeneration programme

Edinburgh Waterfront

Edinburgh Waterfront is a redevelopment of parts of Edinburgh along the shores of the Firth of Forth in Leith and Granton. There are three main landowners: Arcus , National Grid and City of Edinburgh Council...

 proper. New luxury flats, converted bond warehouses

Bonded warehouse

A Bonded warehouse is a building or other secured area in which dutiable goods may be stored, manipulated, or undergo manufacturing operations without payment of duty. It may be managed by the state or by private enterprise. In the latter case a customs bond must be posted with the government...

, bistros, bars and restaurants followed. This regeneration is continuing today, with high-rise construction work on reclaimed dockland just a few hundred metres behind Ocean Terminal ongoing. Ocean Terminal

Ocean Terminal, Edinburgh

Ocean Terminal in Leith, Edinburgh, Scotland is a shopping centre, designed by Sir Terence Conran.It is built on former industrial docklands on the north side of the city at the edge of the boundary between formerly separate ports of Newhaven and Leith. The land was formerly occupied by the Henry...

 also opened later, arguably due to a need and demand from the 2000 civil servants working at Victoria Quay, as well as from local people. It is possible that the Scottish Office may have had these positive consequences in mind when construction was agreed.

Prior to Victoria Quay opening, which gave the then Scottish Office a presence in north Edinburgh, the posts were based at New St. Andrews House (NSAH) on James Craig Walk (behind the St James Centre); Jeffrey Street and Brandon Street in central Edinburgh. New St Andrews House (NSAH) was then closed in phases from 1995-96 due to asbestos which was found to be present in the walls of the building. New St Andrews House has lain empty since 1995.

To give perspective to the size of Victoria Quay, VQ is in fact a few feet short of the length of the actual RMS Titanic, and there are some prominent nods to naval architecture in the design of the building.

External links

• Victoria Quay entry at the Gazetteer for Scotland
  Gazetteer for Scotland
  The Gazetteer for Scotland is a gazetteer covering the geography, history and people of Scotland. It was conceived in 1995 by Bruce Gittings of the University of Edinburgh and David Munro of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, and contains 15,500 entries as of January 2008, making it one of...
  
  
• Victoria Quay entry at Edinburgh Architecture