Not to get too political for a website dedicated to things from above, but today I’d like to look into the United Kingdom’s devolved assemblies, if you’ll join me…

Back in 1999, after a couple of referendums, the UK government established devolved assemblies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to make key decisions affecting the lives of local people.

Northern Ireland’s home rule was originally established at Stormont in 1920 until 1974, so in 1999 they already had a suitable building to use. Although, the assembly has been under suspension since 2003 so the building is probably not seeing much use at the moment.

The Welsh Senedd is located in the capital of Cardiff. Designed by British architect Richard Rogers it cost £67 million and was opened March 1, 2006.

Unfortunately Google Earth’s aerial photography was taken sometime before that date and the assembly is seen as just a large building site.

In comparison the Scottish Parliament (designed by the late Catalan architect Enric Miralles), was finished two years earlier than the Welsh assembly, but cost an estimated 431 million pounds.

Despite the staggering cost, in March 2006 the building began falling apart when a roof beam slipped from its hinges during a debate…

Wikipedia: Devolution, Northern Ireland Assembly, National Assembly for Wales, Scottish Parliament

Thanks: AndrewAnorak & Myself

In our never-ending quest to catalogue everything that stakes its claim to being the “world’s largest something” I present to you the world’s largest dry dock.

Located in Belfast’s Docklands (where the ill-fated RMS Titanic was built) the dry dock is part of the Harland & Wolff Shipyard who also operate the two gigantic yellow cranes, Samson & Goliath. UK readers might recognise the area from a BBC ident that showed skateboarders doing tricks underneath the cranes.

To the west is the ferry terminal where you can see a Stenna Line Ferry which operates between here and Stranraer in Scotland. Submitter Chris had this to say:

This ferry is possibly the Stena Caledonia which crosses in 3 hours 15 minutes. The newer high speed Stena Voyager (HSS) also travels this route taking 105 minutes for the trip.

Thanks: redstar1 & Chris