Rainwater floods into new St James Quarter shopping centre
Edinburgh’s new £1 billion shopping centre, St James Quarter, suffered flood damage over the weekend, as heavy rain flooded from the roof into walkways and retail units.
Pictures and videos were posted across social media sites on Sunday, showing the newly opened building suffer bad leaking caused by flash-floods in the local area.
Wet floor signs were placed outside of the large Boots store on the ground floor, with floor staff seen mopping up the wet shop and exterior. Other areas also were seen to be covered in rainwater.
ST. JAMES QUARTER, EDINBURGH
- FLOODING ☔️ #StJamesQuarter #flooding #edinburgh #insurepair pic.twitter.com/8hXQUIfrsW
— INSUREPAIR ® (@Insurepairltd) July 4, 2021
The new centre only opened up its doors last month after five years of construction works, housing retailers including H&M, JD Sports, John Lewis, Tommy Hilfiger and Zara.
A spokeswoman for St James Quarter said: “Due to the severe weather in Edinburgh, parts of the St James Quarter Galleria were cordoned off for safety reasons.
“St James Quarter has been built to fully integrate with the city’s streetscape and is not an enclosed building.
“Whilst St James Quarter has been designed as a naturally ventilated environment and allows some rain to come into the galleria, the extent of water ingress in two sections was mainly caused by severe rainfall testing areas within the second phase of opening which are still under construction.”
