My posts have been somewhat erratic over this past year, mainly because things have been relatively quiet on the planning front in the Scottish Borders. I have also, over the past two or three years been concentrating on my research into the history of town and country planning in the Scottish Borders during the period 1946-96 for a forthcoming book to be published by Edinburgh University Press [in 2023]. For a number of years now, I have been visiting the Heritage Hub in Hawick delving into the planning activities of the four former county councils; Peeblesshire, Roxburgh, Selkirk and Berwickshire, which together with a small part of Midlothian County Council formed the Borders Region in 1975. I have been indebted to a number of former colleagues who have helped me greatly in drawing information together on the planning and development activities of the BRC, the challenges it faced and its achievements during the period 1975-1996. My book will examine how town and country planning [for that is its proper name, although some refer simply to ‘Town Planning’ and others simply to ‘Planning’] evolved in the Scottish Borders from its inception to the demise of the Borders Regional Council in 1996. I shall leave others to deal with Scottish Borders Council.
Returning to the issues of today, I should perhaps draw your attention to the fact that SBC has now submitted its Proposed Local Development Plan [LDP2] to Scottish Ministers for examination of the unresolved issues. In reality it is now for a Reporter [or Reporters] from the Planning and Environmental Appeals Division of the Scottish Government (which is still referred to as the DPEA) to hold hearings/inquiry into the objections received to the submitted local development plan. Apparently, some 1,043 representations were received by the council when the LDP was put out to consultation in November 2020. It has taken some eighteen months for the council to digest all the representations received and draw them together into 76 groups. Objections and concerns have been raised in relation to all eight introductory chapters in Volume 1 of the LDP. There are fifty-eight planning policies within Volume 1 and the majority have been the subject of representations. There are also unresolved issues with regard to proposals in fifty-two of the ninety-three settlements in Volume 2 of the LDP. The proposed allocation of a site for housing at Netherbarns, Galashiels has generated a large volume of representations. The submission to the DPEA also highlights a proposed housing allocation in Eddleston, in Peeblesshire, which abuts the holiday hut site at Hatton Knowe, to which objections were received out of time and which the council considers should be disregarded. It will be interesting to see what the Reporter(s) appointed to the local development plan examination decide to do.
All the details relating to the LDP Examination can be found on the DPEA website www.dpea.scotland.gov.uk (Ref. No. LDP-140-3). It will, no doubt, be some considerable time before any examination takes place but progress will be charted on the DPEA’s publicly accessible website. I shall certainly be watching events.
Douglas G Hope 