page_title: Nationalisation of Northern Rock
section_title: Head office and The Tower
hierarchical_section_title: Nationalisation of Northern Rock / Nationalisation / Head office and The Tower
caption_attribution_description: English: The 2008 Northern Rock Tower Building, at Regent Centre in Gosforth. Taken on 1 October 2008 during the final stages of construction.
context_page_description: In 2008 the Northern Rock bank was nationalised by the British Labour Government, due to financial problems caused by the subprime mortgage crisis. In 2010 the bank was split into two parts to aid the eventual sale of the bank back to the private sector.
  On 14 September 2007, the Bank sought and received a liquidity support facility from the Bank of England, as a result of its exposure in the credit markets, during the 2008 financial crisis. On 22 February 2008 the bank was taken into state ownership. The nationalisation followed two unsuccessful bids to take over the bank, neither being able to fully commit to repayment of savers' and investors' money.
  In 2012 Virgin Money completed their purchase of Northern Rock from UK Financial Investments for approximately £1 billion and by October of that year the high street bank operated under the Virgin Money brand.
context_section_description: At the time of its nationalisation, Northern Rock was developing two new offices. At its headquarters at the Regent Centre complex in Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne the bank was midway through construction of a 10-storey tower that would provide a focus for the whole site. As the redundancy programme has made the new space surplus to capacity, the bank sought to sell or lease the tower building to a third party. The bank also developed a site at Rainton Bridge, which was also surplus to capacity, and it sold the site to npower.
  In April 2009, the local council, Newcastle City Council, announced that they were to buy the building for £22 million, and lease it to a green support services company, Eaga. By November the sale of the building was complete, and the council renamed it Partnership House.
caption: The Tower, during the final stages of its construction in 2008.
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