Tuesday December 2nd 2025
Center Parcs Hawick
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Paul Kelly
Finding homes for many of the 1,200 workers to be employed at a new £450m Borders holiday village will prove a “big challenge”, a business boss admitted today.
At a meeting next week, Center Parcs is set to be given the green light from Scottish Borders Council for its first holiday park in Scotland, on land at and incorporating Huntlaw Farm at Hassendean in Hawick.
The development is expected to support between 750 and 800 jobs during the construction phase and create approximately 1,200 permanent roles once operational, the majority of which will be filled by local people.
South of Scotland Enterprise (SOSE) is working with the council and Center Parcs to ensure the development is successful.
At a meeting of the council’s Executive Committee on Tuesday, November 2, Russel Griggs, SOSE’s chair, revealed the challenges ahead.
He said: “Whilst it is great news that Center Parcs is coming, let’s not fool ourselves that it will not be a big challenge. We’re going to need housing for the 1,200 people who work at Center Parcs.
“We have got to find people to work there and make sure Hawick takes advantage of what we estimate to be the £27m economic development spend a year being brought into that community.
“We have to work with the communities around there to make sure they take full advantage of it.
“I sat at the back of the room the day that Center Parcs was launched and I think a number of councillors would have quite happily stood up and done little jigs in terms of something like this being really transformational.
“About two weeks after the news about Center Parcs came the phones started to ring from builders saying: ‘Do you have any vacant land?’, ‘Can we come and build some houses?’
“So there’s no doubt that the more noise we make about what is going on the more it will encourage house-builders.”
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