Appendix 1a: Department of Physical Planning, December 1975 271

Appendix 1b: Department of Physical Planning and Development, 1978 272

Appendix 1c: Department of Physical Planning and Development, 1983 273

Appendix 1d: Department of Planning and Development, 1988 274

Appendix 1e: Department of Planning and Development, 1993 275

Appendix 2: Scottish Borders Council Archive Sources 276

Appendix 3: BRC (Planning & Development Department) Publications 285

Appendix 4: Selected Scottish Office Guidance on Town and Country Planning 288

Appendix 5: BRC (P & D Dept) Industrial Properties (1 January 1988) 295

Appendix 6: SDA Properties in the Borders Region (1 January 1988) 300

INTRODUCTION

Chapter Three examines the growing influence of central government, the Scottish Office, on town and country planning in the Scottish Borders in the 1960s through the issue of the White Paper on the Scottish Economy, the decision to proceed with the Tweedbank Development and the revival of the regional approach to planning with the commissioning of the Central Borders Study. It discusses the local planning authorities’ response to the Scottish Office's initiatives and describes how planning and development became closely intertwined in a bid to stem the long-term depopulation of the region.

Following the introduction by the Labour government of the 1947 Planning Act along with a raft of other pioneering legislation such as the New Towns Act 1946 and the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949, there followed a period of consolidation in terms of planning legislation with the election of the Conservative government in 1951. During the 1950s, the planning system became centred around development control. Development plans were little more than land use maps and, as the pace of change increased in the early 1960s, they become increasingly out of date and of diminishing value in determining the future direction of growth and development.

The early 1960s was a period of great social, cultural, economic and political change; the ‘Swinging Sixties’. The legacies of the Second World War, unrepaired and unfit housing and temporary prefabs, were replaced by burgeoning local authority housing schemes. New styles of architecture, using concrete and steel, became common. The established industries of shipbuilding, iron and steel, coal mining and the textile industry were in irreversible decline. In Scotland, the SHD, which had responsibility for the promotion of Scottish industry and the DHS, which had the responsibility for planning, were replaced by the Scottish Home and Health Department (SHHD) and the Scottish Development Department (SDD), which henceforth had the combined responsibility for planning and economic development. Most contemporary commentators attribute this decision of the Conservative government to the publication of the inquiry into the Scottish economy by the Scottish Council (Development and Industry) in 1961, which urged the creation of a new government department to combine the Scottish Secretary's statutory responsibilities for planning and the promotion of industry.

INTRODUCTION

Prior to 1975, local government in Scotland represented a distinctly Scottish set of institutions. The roots of Scottish local government can be traced back to the royal burghs of the Middle Ages and was one of the items guaranteed in the Treaty of Union in 1707. Prior to 1929, Scottish local government consisted primarily of royal burghs, which were typically small towns or villages that organised trade and basic services within communities, and county councils established in 1889. As the functions of local government expanded, notably during the nineteenth century, the demand for a more systematic structure of local government developed. This resulted in the complex structure of 430 local authorities established in 1929, which consisted of thirty-three county councils and four counties of cities (Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen), twenty-one large burghs, generally those with a population of 20,000 people or more, 176 small burghs and 196 landward district councils. In 1975, there were fifty-seven Scottish local planning authorities, comprising thirty-one counties (two of them joint), twenty-four large burghs and two small burghs, with planning powers under the 1947 Act, ranging in size and character from the City of Glasgow, with over one million people, to the County of Sutherland, with 13,500 people scattered over 2,000 square miles. In the four Border counties of Berwickshire, Peeblesshire, Roxburghshire and Selkirkshire, there were twelve small burghs: Coldstream, Duns, Eyemouth and Lauder in Berwickshire; Innerleithen and Peebles in Peeblesshire, Hawick, Jedburgh, Kelso and Melrose in Roxburghshire; and Galashiels and Selkirk in Selkirkshire. Planning powers were held solely by the four county councils.

By the mid-1960s, the generally held view was that there was a need to reform local government in Scotland. The multiplicity of local authorities, many of them serving small areas and small populations were inefficient. As population had migrated to the towns and cities as a result of the Industrial Revolution and these towns and cities had expanded into the surrounding countryside, boundary anomalies caused friction between neighbouring authorities. Also, given the emerging culture of regional, economic and strategic planning in the 1960s, pressure developed behind the concept of larger, regional local authorities that could improve service provision.

INTRODUCTION

The start of the final decade of the twentieth century saw a number of significant organisational and operational changes amongst Scotland's principal agencies. The establishment of Scottish Homes in 1989 in place of the SSHA and the Housing Corporation, the emergence of Scottish Enterprise (SE) in 1991 and the amalgamation of the CCS with the NCCS in 1992 to form Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) are just three examples. Scottish Homes was empowered to assist all sectors of the housing market, particularly in areas of ‘tenure deficiencies’. With the abolition of the SSHA in 1989 and the transfer of its functions to Scottish Homes, a strategic development plan was drawn up for the phased development of housing for rent and low-cost home ownership at Tweedbank with the intention of completing development by 1996, and sites for owner-occupied housing were identified. Scottish Homes embarked on an expansion of housing at Tweedbank with a further 400 houses of varying tenure over a six-year programme. Its Rural Policy, published in September 1990, identified four key challenges: increasing the supply of housing in rural areas; tackling poor housing conditions; ensuring affordability and tenant and community involvement. However, Scottish Homes seemed determined to by-pass local authorities despite such bodies having an established organisational infrastructure and local accountability. Instead, emphasis was placed on low-cost home ownership rather than social renting, and local housing agencies with grants for rent or ownership. In the Borders, new housing was provided by Eildon Housing Association and organisations such as Waverley Housing and the Berwickshire Housing Association took over local authority housing responsibilities in the Central Borders and Berwickshire respectively.

Scottish Enterprise (SE) was established in April 1991, an amalgamation of the SDA and the Training Agency, under the Enterprise and New Towns Act 1990. SE thus became responsible for the economic development functions of the SDA; industrial development and job creation and environmental regeneration, and the employment training programmes previously administered by the MSC. There was a marked change in economic development strategy, reflecting the government's view that there had not been sufficient involvement of private business in managing the SDA.

The focus of this book is on the Scottish Borders and how the process and practice of town and country planning emerged from being a fringe activity of local government in the 1950s to become the driving force for change in the 1980s and 1990s. During the period 1946–1996, the subject of this book, this peripheral rural region was transformed from a quiet planning backwater, largely overlooked by central government, to become a beacon for rural regeneration, at the forefront of the development of rural development policy in Scotland.

The book provides a comprehensive appraisal of the changing role of town and country planning within a unique area of Scotland over a period of fifty years, examining continuity and change in policies and proposals for land use and development. It explores the relationship between planning and economic development in stimulating growth within a rural region of Scotland. It illustrates how town and country planning in the Scottish Borders developed from a simple land use control mechanism to a proactive, multi-disciplinary activity. The book is based on primary sources, including agenda, papers and minutes of the four original county planning authorities and the Borders Regional Council, official publications and the personal accounts of staff. It draws on the author's expert knowledge of town and country planning in Scotland at both central and local government level.

The book combines scholarly analysis with a practitioner's perspective on the journey that town and country planning has taken in the Scottish Borders over a period of fifty years from its origins in the 1940s. The book has been written not by an academic researcher but by someone who has fifty years’ experience working in both central and local government in Scotland. With an honours degree in geography, a postgraduate diploma in town planning and five years town planning experience at Doncaster CBC, I joined the Scottish Development Department in 1969 to assist in the preparation of government guidance on the new structure and local plan system introduced by the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1969.

INTRODUCTION

The Scottish Borders stretches from the environs of Edinburgh in the north to the English border to the south and from the rolling Tweedsmuir Hills in the west to the rocky North Sea coast in the east; an area of 1,820 square miles (4,714 square km). Through it, the River Tweed flows for 90 miles (145 km) from its headwaters near Tweedsmuir, through Peebles, Galashiels, Kelso and Coldstream to the sea at Berwick-upon-Tweed in neighbouring Northumberland. ‘The Borders’ is a long-established entity, epitomised in the Border Ballads and the writings of Sir Walter Scott, James Hogg (the Ettrick Shepherd) and John Buchan.

The Scottish Borders, as an administrative unit, was created when the Borders Regional Council (BRC) was established with the reorganisation of local government in Scotland in 1975. It is one of the most sparsely populated regions of Scotland, with an estimated population of 115,000 persons in 2020. The region comprises the historic counties of Peeblesshire, Selkirkshire, Roxburghshire and Berwickshire (and a small area of Midlothian), traditionally an area synonymous with woven cloth (tweed), high quality knitwear and agriculture. It is an area with a rich past as evidenced by its ruined towers, castles, abbeys and historic houses, and remembered in its common riding ceremonies.

The peaceful tranquillity of its landscape, however, gives little indication of the challenges faced by this area during the twentieth century as a result of the decline in its traditional industries and the loss of population (from a peak of 130,000 in 1881–1891 to less than 100,000 in 1971). Rural depopulation over a prolonged period of time resulted in a shortage of labour for traditional industries and the loss of young people led to an ageing population with its own demands on services and facilities. Furthermore, the region's population is dispersed throughout the area with no single town providing a focus for industry and commerce. The largest towns of Hawick, Galashiels, Peebles, Selkirk, Jedburgh and Kelso have their own hinterlands, but the lack of a dominant centre and a history of strong, independent Border burghs has been a hindrance to the development of the region.

INTRODUCTION

Chapter One explores the origins of town and country planning in the UK and describes how planning was put into practice in the Scottish Borders in the 1940s and 1950s. Planning committees were established in the 1940s and were advised by the county clerk assisted by the county surveyor or county architect supported by technical staff. In the 1950s, most staff in Scottish county planning departments was unqualified in planning, or architects who might have taken an addi-tional course in ‘Town Planning’. Sir Frank Mears was responsible for Scotland's first Town Planning course, introduced at the Edinburgh College of Art in 1932. Architecture students successfully completing the one-year course were awarded the Diploma in Town Planning and exempt from the final examinations of the Town Planning Institute (TPI). It would be 1948 before a separate School of Town Planning was established at the College of Art, awarding diplomas in town planning similar to the schools of town planning in the universities of Liverpool, London, Manchester and Durham.

There were only eighteen qualified town planners working in Scotland at this time, most of whom were in the Department of Health for Scotland (DHS). Local government had been slow to appoint ‘Planners’ to head their new Planning Departments; instead, entrusting the task to their road surveyors or architect's departments. John Somerville (Jack) Baillie, appointed County Planning Officer of Midlothian County Council in 1948 and Frank Tindall, appointed County Planning Officer of neighbouring East Lothian County Council in 1950, would be two of the first fully qualified county planning officers in Scotland. John C. Hall, and subsequently his son John B. Hall, trading as J & J Hall, Architects of Galashiels, would act as county planning officer for Selkirk County Council (SCC) providing planning advice to the county clerk. Peebles County Council (PCC) would be advised by Jack Baillie and Assistant County Planning Officer, Charles Ross (Charlie) Mackenzie, of Midlothian County Planning Department. In Roxburghshire the county architect provided advice to the county clerk, and in Berwickshire the county surveyor was appointed county planning officer. It would be the late 1960s before Roxburgh and Berwickshire County Councils appointed qualified county planning officers.

INTRODUCTION

This chapter examines the role of the Planning and Development Department leading up to the reorganisation of local government in 1996, when the BRC and its four constituent district councils were replaced by the Scottish Borders Council (SBC). During the early 1990s, four district-wide local plans were produced to replace the twelve local plans adopted in the 1980s. They were prepared in tandem with the new structure plan, The Scottish Borders 2001: The Way Forward, approved in November 1993. The replacement local plans applied in detail the policies and proposals incorporated in the approved structure plan, in order to provide a basis for co-ordinating public and private investment and for the control of development up to 2001. The procedure for the preparation of the replacement local plans followed a similar path to that adopted for the first local plans. The Berwickshire Local Plan was adopted, subject to several modifications, in March 1995. The Roxburgh Local Plan was adopted, subject to several modifications, in May 1995. The Ettrick and Lauderdale Local Plan was adopted, subject to several modifications, in July 1995. The Tweeddale Local Plan was adopted, subject to several modifications, in June 1996. A substantial number of policies in the replacement local plans were unchanged from the previous local plans but new policies reflected the economic, social and environmental changes outlined in the approved structure plan. Many of the proposals in the previous local plans had been implemented and new allocations for housing and industry were required to reflect the strategic proposals in the approved structure plan (Figure 9.1).

The BRC was one of the leading local authorities in Scotland campaigning for a stronger voice for rural communities. For more than two decades, perceived to be at a considerable disadvantage compared with the Highlands and Islands, the regional council, strongly supported by its Members of Parliament, particularly Sir David Steel, had sought more recognition by government of the problems of rural areas like the Borders Region. Under the umbrella of COSLA, the regional council brought the problems of rural areas to the attention of government through the gathering of evidence on the extent of rural disadvantage in Scotland. The regional council and other rural local authorities argued that more coherent and integrated policy making was required at government level.

INTRODUCTION

Modernity came to the Borders in various guises: milk bars and tearooms, supermarkets, illuminated advertisements, pedestrian crossings and roundabouts. Architects and builders experimented with new forms of design and construction; new housing schemes, inspired by the innovative New Town designs, sprang up in Galashiels and Hawick. At Church Square, in Galashiels, a scheme designed by architect Peter Womersley for Galashiels Town Council was considered by the Saltire Society to be the best designed housing scheme in Scotland in 1963. Peter Womersley also won awards for his ‘brutal’ concrete design for the Gala Fairydean Football Club stand and for the Bernat Klein Studio, located at High Sunderland, near Selkirk.

The rate of development, as measured by the number of planning applications received across the four counties, fluctuated during the 1960s before increasing from about 1,000 per annum in 1967 to over 1,300 in 1974. The vast majority of applications related to residential development, principally rented housing by the various town councils, supported by the SSHA, and an increasing number of private housing developments. Applications for PFSs and related signage in town and country reflected the growing car usage for leisure, as well as travel to work. The ‘swinging sixties’ also brought with it such diverse proposals as discotheques and youth clubs, bingo halls and a plethora of chewing gum machines outside corner shops in Galashiels and Hawick. The number of applications refused was relatively low; for instance, in 1972, only 7 per cent of the 540 applications received by RCC were refused, reflecting the practice of seeking to achieve a compromise rather than a refusal.

There was a more positive attitude towards urban development with the establishment of technical working parties in Jedburgh, Melrose, Kelso, Hawick and Galashiels. However, most development proceeded by way of amendments to the increasingly out-dated county development plans. Through such formal amendments, land was allocated in all the main towns for both industry and housing in an effort to stem depopulation. Non-statutory plans were prepared for the redevelopment of town centres in Hawick, Jedburgh, Kelso, Melrose, Eyemouth and Duns.

INTRODUCTION

Under the 1947 Act it was the duty of every planning authority to carry out a survey of their area and, within three years of 1 July 1948, the date the Act came into force, prepare a development plan based on the survey and submit it for the approval of the SoS. Planning authorities were also under an obligation to review their development plans at five-yearly intervals and could put forward amendments for approval by the SoS at any time. The Midlothian County Development Plan, which included the Gala Water valley north of Bowland incorporating the villages of Stow, Fountainhall and Heriot, an area that would be included in the Borders Region in 1975, was submitted to the SoS in 1952, the first to be produced in Scotland, and approved in May 1955. The Selkirk County Development Plan was approved by the SoS in April 1955 and the Peeblesshire County Development Plan in December 1955 but it would be February 1965 before the county development plans for Berwickshire and Roxburghshire received his approval. Other than the Quinquennial Review of the Selkirk County Development Plan, approved in January 1968, which excluded Galashiels Burgh, there would be no other attempts to review the approved development plans; they would be modified as required by formal amendment to enable major developments not in accordance with the approved development plan to take place.

The 1947 Act stipulated that the development plan should indicate the manner in which the authority proposed that land in their area should be used and the stages by which any development should be carried out. Development plans had to include a survey report, a written statement summarising the authority's proposals, and a basic map defining the sites of proposed roads, public buildings and so on and allocating or ‘zoning’ areas of land for particular uses such as residential development, industry and open space. Regulations stipulated a wide range of details, from the contents of the survey report to the number and type of accompanying plans and the colours to be used to depict the different land uses.

INTRODUCTION

Following the reorganisation of local government in 1975, the development planning system was composed of National Planning Guidelines, regional reports and structure and local plans. The impetus for the establishment of guidance from central government came from the environmental problems emerging as a result of the demand for sites for oil-platform construction yards in the north and west of Scotland. The Coastal Planning Guidelines, published in 1974, were followed by National Planning Guidelines (NPG) on a diverse range of develop-ment circumstances and types, including agricultural land, housing land, nature conservation, rural planning priorities and forestry, guidelines of much more relevance to the Scottish Borders (see Appendix 4). NPGs were widely acknowledged as an innovative and helpful mechanism to planning authorities in defining national interests in selected topics. However, according to Begg and Pollock, ‘they tended to be rather bland and fall far short of representing a comprehensive compendium of government policy interests or in providing a national framework for land-use planning’.

The requirement for regional reports stemmed from the government's desire to establish a regional framework for policymaking and for determining resource priorities as quickly as possible following reorganisation. The foresight of the constituent counties of the Borders Region meant that a regional report for the Borders Region was prepared within the stipulated time of one year. Although regional reports had the potential to be a vehicle for corporate planning, they were intended primarily as a physical planning document. The SoS only offered observations on the submitted regional report; formal approval was not required. The production of regional reports was the subject of debate and controversy and there followed considerable speculation on their future. In 1982, the SDD informed all regional and island councils that there would be no requirement to review regional reports in view of the progress on structure plans; the range of other policy documents that had been developed, such as Housing Plans and Transport Policies and Programmes; and because of the increasing financial and manpower constraints under which central and local government was operating. According to many, an opportunity had been lost to continue the co-ordinated working within authorities that the process of preparing regional reports had encouraged.