Monday May 26th 2025
The exisiting building in the Borders Innovation Park.
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Paul Kelly
Funding of more than £800k has been agreed by Scottish Borders Council to push ahead with the second stage of the Borders Innovation Park.
As part of the Edinburgh and South East Scotland Region Deal, the first building to be completed in Phase 1 of the park at Tweedbank opened in July 2022 having had its construction delayed because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The IT firm, CGI, has leased one floor in the building while Inspire Learning, a trading digital learning programme, occupies part of the other floor. The rest of the building is occupied by Mainetti, a manufacturing business.
Now Scottish Borders Council has rubber-stamped capital investment of £802,872 to ensure phase 2 goes ahead.
This will involve extending the existing office facility to incorporate the building of four separate offices to accommodate future tenant needs.
The extension of the development was welcomed at a meeting of full council last week, with members informed that up to four businesses had already expressed an interest in taking up the new spaces.
Councillor David Parker, independent for Leaderdale and Melrose, said: “This is indeed a very good news story that the second phase of this building is going to be developed.
“There is a lot going at Tweedbank at the moment in relation to company interest and I think the next 18 months at Tweedbank are going to be quite exciting.”
Kelso Conservative Councillor Simon Mountford added: “This is an important high quality addition to the council’s estate. I know we have a review where we are looking to reduce our estate footprint by ten per cent over the next five years but we’ve always intended to develop Tweedbank to provide the right amount of high quality office space that the Borders needs to attract inward investment. It’s the right development in the right place.”
SNP’s Annette Smart, for Hawick & Hermitage, highlighted that it had taken three years to fully occupy the phase 1 building, stating that there was “a risk” that businesses may be slow to come forward to move into the new offices.
A final decision on funding approval for the extension is expected from Scottish Government early next month.
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