Deal done for £30m mortuary

Adeal has been made to bring a new £30 million integrated mortuary to Aberdeen’s Foresterhill Health Campus. The two-storey building will be built next to the health clinic, and has been designed to offer more modern, comforting facilities for bereaved families.

It will serve the needs of NHS Grampian, Aberdeen University, the Crown Office Procurator Fiscal Service, Police Scotland, and five councils, providing post-mortem facilities across Grampian and the Northern Isles.

The new mortuary will include many facilities, including teaching, learning, and training capacity on the upper floor, bereavement suites with more privacy and dignity, construction that will meet the ambitions of being a net-zero-carbon facility and a design that makes the most of natural light.

Construction by Kier Construction, which is leading the project, is due to begin soon, but an opening date has not yet been confirmed.

Initial work is already under way and ground clearance and construction will continue through the autumn.

Aberdeen City Council operational delivery convener Miranda Radley said: “It is good to see the collaboration between many organisations with a building that is fit for purpose, works for staff, and improves educational facilities.

“We welcome the contribution from the Scottish Government toward the project being an innovative pathology learning facility in Scotland.”

The development will build upon Aberdeen’s already large complex at Foresterhill.

Professor Rona Patey, director of the Institute of Education in Healthcare and Medical Sciences at Aberdeen University, said: “We are delighted this project is progressing, as students and trainees will be educated in a purpose-built space.”

Paul Allen, NHS Grampian’s executive director of infrastructure and sustainability, said: “It is a considerable accomplishment for the design to have been taken forward through this historically unusual period.

“The team is pleased with the development and to be working on such a complex, multifunctional and multi-agency project.”

PLANS IN PLACE: An image of how the Foresterhill facility will look.