Cameron Toll

Road sign at Cameron Toll roundabout showing the low railway bridge crossing it at two points

Cameron Toll is a suburb located to the south of Edinburgh, Scotland. Originally it was the site of a toll house built in the early 19th century, which was located on a stretch of road between Edinburgh and Dalkeith. The meaning of the name Cameron is suggested to be 'crooked hill', derived from the Scots Gaelic 'cam', crooked, and Old Gaelic 'brun' meaning hill, believed to refer to Arthur’s Seat clearly visible nearby; the original name may have been Pictish.

The area is now dominated by a large roundabout, which is crossed by a railway line.

Cameron Toll is 1½ miles from Edinburgh city centre, 2 miles from the Edinburgh City Bypass and is served by many bus services to and from Edinburgh and Midlothian. It is close to The Grange and Newington and the area called the Inch.

Cameron Toll Shopping Centre

The area is the location of Cameron Toll Shopping Centre, Edinburgh’s first ‘out of town’ shopping centre, which opened in 1984 at a cost of £33 million. Built in the former grounds of Inch House between the A7 and A701 roads, the centre occupies a 26 acre site and has free parking for 1200 cars. It contains around 50 shops including one of the largest Sainsbury's supermarkets in Scotland, fashion retailers New Look, Dorothy Perkins and Peacocks, bookshop Waterstones and video game outlet Game. A number of eating and drinking outlets, with seating, are provided on a mezzanine floor and, in the main mall, are leading UK retailers Costa Coffee and Greggs the bakers.

When the centre originally opened it had just thirty five shop units as well as two major retail outlets – the SavaCentre hypermarket, a joint venture between British Home Stores and Sainsbury's, and a smaller Safeway (UK) supermarket. At the time of building the SavaCentre was Scotland’s largest single level store. In 1984 it had the only Sunday opening bank in the UK (TSB) and it was the first centre of its kind to use a computer controlled lighting system.

550,000 people live within a 20 minute drive of the centre, which is also served well by public transport. Since it opened in 1984 over 100 million people have shopped at Cameron Toll with around 85,000 visiting every week.

Flooding

The shopping centre was built on the low-lying flood plain of the Braid Burn, which is culverted for much of its course through this neighbourhood. Flooding of the area took place soon after the centre's opening and has recurred several times: in August 2008 local residents had to deal with metre-high floods. Between 2004 and 2010 the City of Edinburgh Council implemented flood prevention measures along much of the course of the Braid Burn. However the shopping centre and its immediate environs remain a target area for which the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) undertakes to provide flood warnings as necessary.

See also

• St Margaret's School, which was formerly based nearby.

External links

• Cameron Toll Shopping Centre