Monday July 21st 2025
Storage Yard. Photo by Aga Adamek
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Paul Kelly
Google Earth satellite images have been used as evidence for refusal of an Innerleithen storage yard bid.
RCR Limited said the former Princes Street gasworks site they had taken over in 2022 had been used as storage for more than 30 years.
The company had an application to convert the site into a storage yard rejected by Scottish Borders Council, a decision which they appealed for the Scottish government to overturn.
The company’s appeal was on the grounds that the site had been used as a storage area by the previous occupiers.
That appeal has now been rejected after Google Earth images from 2007, 2014 and 2022 showed no sign of storage on the land.
In his appeal decision notice, the planning reporter appointed by Scottish ministers, Malcolm Mahony, sited as evidence aerial imagery from Google Earth.
He stated: “The council states that aerial imagery from Google Earth, dated July 2022, shows the site as overgrown, with blocks at the entrance, and that the photograph on the Graham and Sibbald sales particulars shows the same.
“It also indicates that aerial imagery from its geographical information systems and Google Earth images from 2007, 2014 and 2022 do not show reasonable evidence of storage use.”
A representation from Mrs Aileen Logan, a local resident for approximately 45 years, stated that, following removal of the gasholder, the site was locked up, abandoned and became heavily overgrown.
An email representation from Ross McGinn, chairman of Innerleithen Community Trust, stated that he had been a local resident for 34 years in which time the second of two gasometers on the site was removed, with the site deemed to be polluted and locked up.
After reviewing the evidence, Mr Mahony said that on the balance of probability there was insufficient evidence of continuous use throughout the 10-year period required and the appeal failed.
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