Thursday November 6th 2025
River Teviot
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Paul Kelly
The cost of Hawick Flood Protection Scheme has risen to just over £106.5m, senior councillors will be informed next week.
That figure dwarfs the original estimate of £28m cited back in 2013 when Scottish Borders Council approved its progress.
The costs had risen to an estimated £92m by the end of 2021.
When members of Scottish Borders Council’s Executive Committee meet on Tuesday, November 11, they will learn that the figure now stands at £106,552 as it nears completion.
Increased costs have been attributed in part to the Covid pandemic, which led to delays, and inflationary costs, which saw prices increase significantly.
Despite the rising costs the highly complex scheme, with McLaughlin & Harvey as the main works contractor, has received many recent engineering accolades, including both the Project of the Year and Resilience Award at the 2025 Scottish Civil Engineering Awards.
Earlier, it won the UK Project with a Geotechnical Value award at the 2025 Ground Engineering Awards.
It also received the Environmental Project Award at the 2025 British Construction Industry Awards (BCIA).
Most importantly it has reduced the chances of hundreds of houses and businesses again suffering the misery of flooding in the decades to come.
The escalating costs was the main reason council leader Euan Jardine asked Audit Scotland to carry out a full review of the scheme, one of the largest and most ambitious flood defence projects in Scotland.
Mr Jardine has praised the impact the project has had in protecting hundreds of properties in the town from flooding for generations to come.
But with the council facing ongoing financial pressures he believes lessons must be learned – both nationally and locally – over funding issues and in also providing full public transparency.
His request came amid growing concern in Scotland about the escalating costs of flood defence projects, with many schemes experiencing significant overruns and delays.
The Scottish Government has contributed more than £63 million towards the scheme, with SBC providing more than £15m, in addition to £9m from the walking and cycling charity Sustrans, with smaller amounts from Scottish Water (£665,000) and Transport Scotland (£500,000).
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