In the week that academics and arts bodies came together in Dundee to support a proposal to site a new outpost of the prestigious V&A Museum in Dundee, a local MSP has now written to the new Culture Minister to propose that the city should become the base for the arts body Creative Scotland.

Dundee West MSP Joe FitzPatrick has today written to the Minister suggesting that the new arts body Creative Scotland – formed from the merger of Scottish Screen and the Scottish Arts Council – could be sited in the city, within the proposed new V&A building. The transitional body was previously located in Abertay University’s White Space in Dundee.

Joe FitzPatrick said: “I was very pleased with the positive approach the Culture Minister has taken towards the possibility of an outpost of the V&A being sited in Dundee Waterfront and I feel that the recent two day Conference in Dundee was a major success.”

Outlining the case for Dundee, Joe FitzPatrick said: “Dundee has a growing reputation in the arts as well as in new media and this move would appear to me to offer considerable advantages. It is an unique opportunity to site Scotland’s leading cultural body in an iconic new arts building. It will offer benefits in terms of savings in scale costs and in terms of lower costs due to Dundee’s location.

“There could be additional synergy in combining these two projects. The timing could not be more perfect for such a move. There is also the possibility that the move could help to bridge any funding gap for the V&A proposal. ”

“The ongoing deliberations over Creative Scotland will involve a number of suggestions but at this stage, I am setting down a marker for Dundee as a base for the new arts body.”