Monday May 26th 2025
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Paul Kelly
A ‘golden era’ for planning and development in the Scottish Borders is captured for posterity in a newly published paperback.
Douglas Hope, from Clovenfords, has been a town and country planner for over 50 years.
He has worked for both central and local government in Scotland, principally at Borders Regional Council between 1975 and 1996, where he was Depute Director of Planning and Development, and the Scottish Government’s Directorate for Planning and Environmental Appeals.
His newly released in paperback, Town and Country Planning in the Scottish Borders, 1946- 1996 examines the changing role of town and country planning within the region over a 50-year period.
The study shows how planning in the Borders was transformed from a fringe activity in local government to a central tool in meeting the challenge of rural depopulation and sustainability amidst social, political and economic upheaval.
It compares and contrasts the different ways in which the four counties, Peeblesshire, Selkirkshire, Roxburghshire and Berwickshire, attempted to deal with the decline in the regions’ traditional industries, woven textiles and agriculture, and the loss of population since 1891.
The book explores the origins of the Tweedbank development, the plan for acontroversial new settlement at Newtown St. Boswells and the closure of the Waverley line.
It also explains how planning and economic development became inexorably linked in an effort to stem depopulation.
The book describes how, in partnership with a range of organisations, the Borders Regional Council met the challenges of the 1980s and 1990s, securing investment and implementing proposals across the whole spectrum of development planning.
It also details how environmental issues came to the fore and, with the reorganisation of local government in 1996 and the establishment of the Scottish Parliament in 1999 looming, examines the role of the Planning and Development Department in preparing for the challenges of the twenty-first century.
Douglas said: “Talking to people that worked for Borders Regional Council back in the 70s and 80s it seemed to me that people soon forget the achievements and challenges of what happened in the past.
“There are histories of the Borders in the long-distant past but I thought that, particularly during the 70s, 80s and 90s, there was a huge amount of change in the Borders and that there should be a record of it.
“Up until the 1960s the Borders was subject to depopulation with traditional industries running down, the knitwear industry, textiles, and agriculture.
“When the sixties came along it was like a bright new world and there were a huge amount of developments on the economic development side, with planning and economic development combined to attract and create new industries in the Borders, the electronics industries, food processing in Eyemouth and that helped stop depopulation and led to the kind of growth that we have today.
“Since 1996 with reorganisation I think we do forget what has happened in the past and I wanted to set this record down because the memories of people who were involved disappear and people die and pass on and that record is lost.
“That period put the Borders on the map in a way. Until the 1960s the Borders was a planning backwater really and unrecognised both locally and nationally, but from that time on because of the work of planners, led by people like David Douglas, combined with David Steel and very strong-minded councillors in the Borders region, Major Askew early on, then Lord Minto, DrewTulley, these kind of people, the Borders became recognised as a place for growth and place for innovation.”
Gordon is somewhat less enamoured with the modern planning processes, diplomatically adding: “Up to the turn of the century planning development had a leading role in how the region developed and I think the stages of planning in the area has somewhat declined since then.”
Published by Edinburgh University Press, the paperback is available via paperback is available for pre-order HERE.
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