Recent reports of more job losses in Hawick’s knitwear mills have refocused attention on the Action Plan created by the local Councillors and by SBC’s Economic Development officers in July, at the time of Pringle losses and the visit by John Swinney MP. Clearly contraction in the industry is an ongoing problem, and the situation has not been helped by the more widespread economic downturn.

Straightaway Ron wants to disassociate himself – and all of his fellow Councillors – from the assertion made in Hawick News (in a letter 7/11/08, and in a contributor’s column 14/11/08) that the Councillors feel it is not their remit to bring jobs to the area. This is totally untrue. The statement appears to have been made some years ago by a former Councillor but gains currency each time it is repeated! The present Councillors do see it as in their remit, and are determined to improve the local business environment so that employers will want to come to our area and to stay there.

The paragraphs below include items from a report made by SBC Economic Development officers to the local Councillors. Neither Ron nor the Lib Dems have any more input into these than any other Councillor or Party. They are included on this blog only to give information to a wider public on what is happening.

Scottish Enterprise and SBC Economic Development have met with Pringle management to discuss the retention of Head Office and Design functions in Hawick. The company has stated it is keen to retain a working presence in Hawick but Design is taking place in London because of the availability of top designers. The company have also indicated that they would prefer to find alternative premises in Hawick as their property requirements are different in view of their reduced workforce and operations. An initial set of possible property alternatives has been sent to the company. The reuse of the Pringle buildings for employment uses also needs to be investigated, although flooding and other planning considerations need to be addressed. A To Let sign now is to be seen on the building.

SBC are working with Scottish Enterprise to make more employment land available and the recently published Amendments to the Local Plan show earmarking of several fields at Galalaw for future employment, amounting to 14 hectares. Increased employment land in Newcastleton however is still a major issue to be resolved.

A revised draft of the Commercial Road proposals is now out for discussion, and will be presented at the Area Committee meting in Hawick Town Hall on Tuesday 18^th November. This also offers opportunities for employment – short term in construction and long term through retail and other commercial opportunities.

A motion to be considered at the full SBC meeting on 20^th November calls for the Waverley Rail Project to be brought forward in the interests of creating employment.

SBC and Scottish Enterprise are working together (and through the South of Scotland Alliance) to develop projects that would take advantage of Broadband pathfinder investment, and are also working with the private sctor and other agencies in relation to energy and biofuel ideas.

Economic Development officers would find it helpful to be updated on Scottish Government plans for any relocation of Government jobs, but the possible loss of HMRC jobs through the closures of their offices in Galashiels and in Hawick goes against this.

Scottish Enterprise are working on support for the Textile and Knitwear Industry, but further work is said to be needed to improve the links between Higher and Further education in the region and local (knitwear) businesses.

The final aspect of the Action Plan was to create an initiative (The Small Towns Support Initiative) that could support the regeneration of small towns, particularly focusing on town centre investment. Proposals for such an initiative are under discussion, the research having recently been completed, and SBC will suggest that, in view of the pressures being faced in Hawick, one option could be for the Government to use Hawick as a pilot area – a testing ground for new approaches.

The Transforming Children’s Services programme has continued to take up a lot of time. Over 247 responses were received by the closing date of 27^th October. These were circulated online to all councillors, with names and addresses omitted because of the lack of security involved in such e-mailed communication. It was of course possible to work out the source of some of the messages from the context. Ron has now read all of these submissions and formed clearer ideas of the main areas of concern.

It has become obvious from discussion after this October 27^th deadline that the document will be significantly altered, and the new date for submission of the revised draft to the full Council is to be 18^th December. Ron will certainly be looking for specific changes and is contributing fully to the discussions with a view to bringing these changes about.

Ron, as a member of SBC’s Flood Advisory Group, met last week with officials from Technical Services department to discuss flood prevention issues. He conveyed the concern expressed by the five councillors from Hawick who are part of the Council’s Administration, that the pace of development of flood prevention measures in the town was too slow.

Since the October 2005 flood, three measures have been installed – the flood wall at the High School, the flood gate at the Lawson Bridge, and a small diversionary wall behind Oliver Park aimed at returning floodwater to the river. The local members had however agreed with the Flood Advisory Group that work should be done to remove the remains of Weensland Cauld, that the removal of an island in the watercourse at Weensland should be investigated, and that higher level flood relief channels past Weensland Mill and the Rugby / Football grounds should also be developed. Licences are being sought from SEPA to allow some of this work, but it appears that the ‘weather window’ for the work may have been lost by the time licensing is approved!

Ron discussed with the officials the urgency of work being seen to be done, and asked them to prepare for demands at the next FAG meeting in late October that plans for low walls instead of railings along the river from Waverley Bridge to Trinity Bridge be developed, with costings and a timescale. Walls of 1.2 metres in height might be proposed.

The Hawick councillors also asked that the FAG meetings, which are held at two month intervals at present, be changed to monthly, to reflect the seriousness of the situation. Ron stressed to officials that there was urgent need to ‘up the pace’.

Ron attended the Scottish Borders Awards ceremony for 2008 at Springwood Hall, Kelso on October 3^rd and with 410 others celebrated the successes of Borderers. It was especially pleasing that so many of the finalists, and the winners, were based in Hawick & Hermitage ward. First up was Liam Beattie of Hawick, who,  with his colleague Iona Stevenson from Earlston, were declared Scottish Borders Young Ambassadors of the Year for their work as Members of the Scottish Youth Parliament. Then Hawick Knitwear were one of two runners up in the Award for Excellence in Skills & Learning. The Award for the Best Community Project was won by Newcastleton’s Community First Responders, and a party of 18 from the village celebrated that well deserved success. One of the three runners up in the category is also based in Hawick & Hermitage ward: Artbeat Studios, of Buccleuch Street. From across the Teviot, in ‘Hawick & Denholm’, Burnfoot Community School took first place in the Award for Promoting Health & Wellbeing, and this was also celebrated by a large group of parents and staff.

An excellent night, with plenty of opportunities for mingling and ‘networking’, and a chance for recognition to be given to these and other groups who have tried to develop their businesses or organisations.

Original proposals were for a six minute section of Borders news after 6pm as part of a Tyne Tees news programme, but a delegation to London of councillors and council officials from all across the Borders TV area, which included Hawick & Hermitage councillor Ron Smith, made a case to ITV bosses, and were ‘rewarded’ by amended proposals bringing a fifteen minute section for the South of Scotland, with a nine minute programme for the original Borders area around 10.30. This proposal included the location of a ‘video journalist’ in the Borders, responding to local stories.

Borders has provided an excellent service to our area, helping to encourage the identity of Borderers as somehow set apart. While based in Carlisle, it offered a service for a mainly rural area, being the outlet for good-news stories, when national bulletins were more likely to focus on disasters. It promoted local events and helped with the marketing of local festivals and sporting events, while also recording the achievements of Borderers: sporting, centenarians etc. It’s inconceivable that a Tyne Tees based service will be as responsive.

The news on Tuesday that so many of the staff based in Carlisle are to be made redundant adds to the dismay. These have become familiar faces to Borderers, and their impact shouldn’t be underestimated. They had built up contacts and an understanding with local people. They had been present during the floods, or at the time of Foot & Mouth, and had also been seen out and about at agricultural shows and festivals. Older and less mobile Borderers saw them as weel-kent faces who shared their living rooms.

It’s a sad day, and another erosion of the local services we all prefer.

However he noted that he had felt unable to agree to the wording of the question put by the parents’ lobby group led by Rory Bannerman. That question was ‘Are you as a Scottish Borders Councillor committed to supporting the Parent Council’s position to the extent that there should be no cuts in the education budget for 09/10 and you support the education budget at the very least remaining the same in real terms as that imposed in 08/09’.  The councillor stated:  ‘The present situation cannot continue, and all initiatives need to be individually considered. Expectations should always be of improvements in services such as education, but costs are constantly rising. With the freeze on Council Tax, the Council is being required to trim all services to the bone and education is competing against social work, roads etc. for scarce funding. Unless Council Tax is allowed to rise, savings will have to be made somewhere – in headquarters staffing, in energy consumption, in transportation costs etc.. I am opposed also to any staffing reduction, unless created by a major decline in pupil numbers’. 

Councillor Smith, for 12 years head of Geography at Hawick High and then on the school’s senior management team for a further 18 years, has had first hand experience of the curricular and financial pressures, while he also gained knowledge of the additional needs environment.  

In speaking of the Transforming Children’s Services review, currently out for consultation, he said: ‘I am not opposed to the shared headship initiative within Primary Schools. It can be difficult for ‘teaching headteachers’ to balance the needs of both jobs. They should have time to allow them to manage, and this also allows them some flexibility in their day to day cooperation with their staff. This initiative is also likely to be cost-neutral as new classteachers will be employed to replace them in class, giving pupils more continuity.’ However he did go on to express concern over the proposals to reduce the number of principal teachers in secondary schools. ‘I can understand that occasionally a subject might disappear, as the need for it might have reduced, but I just don’t support the faculty system at all. Three departments under the management of one teacher who may have limited qualification, experience, or even interest, across the set, doesn’t make sense.to me’. However let’s wait and see what responses come forward from schools on this issue. 

He concluded: ‘Hopefully the campaign against cuts last year will lead to a more sensitive approach to budgeting in the coming negotiations’.

Over the past year, I’ve been trying to promote changes to Drumlanrig Square and to the upper part of Beaconsfield Terrace, for safety reasons. These are described earlier on this blog. Progress has however been slow! At Beaconsfield Terrace, more signage has been erected, and has been refreshed on the road surface, to highlight the 20 mph speed limit. Initially it had been hoped to extend the pedestrian barrier futher down the hill to restrict casual crossing at the wide junction , but this was said by locals to have the potential for creating problems, especially on the days when refuse or recyclates were to be uplifted. Comments more recently seem to suggest that greater police involvement is needed at this point, as it is the speed and style of driving which is being highlighted, as well as the number of drivers using mobile phones. Speed bumps are also being looked for but the advice from Roads officials is that these would be unacceptable at this particular location, as they create noise problems for adjacent residents but also because drivers in turning the corner would be crossing them at an angle and therefore four wheels would be individually bumping across them rather than two sets, again adding to the noise disturbance.

At Drumlanrig Square, the road layout plans are pretty well finalised and it is the parking situation which is causing the delay. Residents and business proprietors have made clear that they do not want any less parking than was previously available. On the east side of the Square, two scenarios are possible and these are being examined to decide which would allow maximum parking while allowing deliveries to businesses and the free movement of buses. I feel it is better to take longer to study the scheme than to make mistakes and have to go back to the drawing board!

Two ongoing issues have been noticeable: flooding and planning.

There have been several scares over flooding – once in Hawick itself but the others in Newcastleton, along the B6357 between Hewisbridge and Saughtree, and in the Teviothead – Carlenrig area. The reasons for the incidents have been quite varied – heavy rainfall, blocked drains, felled trees washed down and blocking bridges – but the outcomes of immediate distress and ongoing anxiety are identical. Plans are progressing quite quickly for action on the drains and intervening ditches in Newcastleton, but the division of costs has still to be finalised. Plans in the Hawick area focus on lower Mansfield and include the removal of the remains of Weensland Cauld, as well as progressing flood alleviation channels, higher level routes between bunds, to catch floodwater and send it further downstream instead of spilling over surrounding land. Where rivers go through farmland, responsibility for protection lies with the landowner, although SEPA is likely to have a view! Discussions I’ve attended recently seem to be reopening the possibility of upstream action on floods, catching the water in land which can safely be flooded, to reduce the peaks arriving in towns and villages.

Planning matters are also varied. Permissions have already been granted for many blocks of housing in the Hawick area, but others arrive in the system every week. Naturally neighbours of the sites are usually very concerned at the potential changes to their situation. If an application meets the requirements of planning policies there can be little scope for withholding permission, as this would just be overturned later on appeal. The most common grounds for refusal are loss of amenity for neighbours, overdevelopment of a site, or parking and access problems. Possibly the most frequent issue is an application for new housing in the countryside, where very specific rules apply. Recently a Reporter appointed to handle an appeal against refusal of permission to develop an eight-apartment block in Oliver Crescent made points very strongly against the (in)appropriateness of the planned building which would be in a Conservation Area, commenting also on the parking problems. The strength of his opposition to the proposal might provide a precedent which would support Councillors in turning down schemes which they might consider unacceptable. Approval by SBC’s Planning Committee of the Sports & Leisure Club building conversion to ten flats has made front page news, but here different policies apply in that conversion of existing town centre buildings is favoured (compared to demolition and new build). No parking will be provided however and that will threaten to put pressure on nearby on-street spaces. I tried to engineer a condition of approval which would state that advertising of the flats must emphasise that parking was not available so that buyers were fully aware of the situation.

All parties agreed that the meeting was a constructive one and gave an opportunity to clarify the reasons for ITV’s proposed changes and their potential impact on the region. Tim Stoddard, Leader of Cumbria County Council, said:
“Lookaround is one of the most valued and well-loved of any of ITV’s regional news programmes. The depth of support for its local coverage is proved time and time again in both the audience viewing figures and our own surveys of local people. Losing Lookaround would have a major impact on the identity of the region. Today’s meeting has helped quantify some of the economic and social effects of the proposed ITV changes and has also been an extremely useful guide to the rationale behind the proposed regulatory changes. We have agreed to meet again with ITV so that we can prepare a fully-informed response once the next stage of Ofcom’s consultation begins in September.”

Ron felt this was a useful meeting. It gave an opportunity for these councils to come together making common cause to protect their own regional news programme. The plans envisage a 6 minute opt out at 6.05 pm from the Gateshead originated news programme. This opt out would cover the whole of South of Scotland, while Cumbria would have their own opt out at this point. The group were promised that any major story for the area – i.e. of wider regional interest - would be covered in the remaining 24 minutes of the programme. Similarly there would be a 9 minute news programme for each area at the close of the national 10.00 pm news. The success or failure of the proposal would be measured by local residents in Teviotdale or Liddesdale by the amount of news coverage of Newcastle or Middlesborough for example, which would be of little interest within the Borders.

While the greater scheme of amalgamation of Border and Tyne Tees seems to be established (led by cost savings), Ron, who was accompanied by Douglas Scott from SBC’s Chief Executive’s office, believes that the points for pushing are

• an increase in the opt out allocation from 6 to 15 minutes (as this will include both Borders and Dumfries & Galloway

• the retention of a news-gathering facility in the Borders are, responding to local events

• a commitment by the amalgamated company to producing feature programmes of Borders interest, such as in the Reivers series.

Further meetings will be taking place.

After extended discussion, the team of councillors, in association with Bryan McGrath of SBC’s Planning & Economic Development staff, had prepared an action plan which lays out their points of concern as well as areas where they are demanding supportive action from Scottish Borders Council and from Scottish Government.

1. Assurances are sought from Pringle that Head Office and Design functions will remain in the town.

2. The councillors stressed their intention that the Glebe Mill site should remain zoned as employment land in the future.

3. They emphasised the need to make additional employment land available, whether brownfield or greenfield, and that additional financial resources would be required to deliver this.

4. They agreed that the redevelopment of Commercial Road should be accelerated, with appropriate land transactions completed, development briefs agreed and planning applications lodged.

5. The councillors felt that further investment in infrastructure was critical, and look for work being brought forward on Borders railway, the A7, broadband etc., and on the investigation of biofuel and other energy projects: all of which aimed at making the Borders more competitive.

6. They demanded that Government consider locating Government jobs in the town, particularly for any new agency being set up.

7. Within the textile sector, and to support remaining businesses, they seek to develop new marketing approaches, building on the success of the cashmere Club – targeting export markets. They also look to Higher and Further Education institutions to work with local industry to provide required skills for the workforce and to help spin-off businesses.

8. They finally stated their wish to be part of the Government’s Small Towns Support Initiative which supports the regeneration of small towns, and focuses particularly on town centre investment.

This discussion, and the ensuing Action Plan, was all preparation for the five councillors – Zandra Elliot, Stuart Marshall, Davie Paterson, Ron Smith, and George Turnbull – to meet later on Wednesday afternoon with Cabinet Secretary for Finance John Swinney, who was accompanied by Christine Graham MSP and John Lamont MSP. David Hume, Chief Executive of SBC, and two Union representatives were also present.

Councillors opened by stressing the ongoing history of job losses in Hawick and in the surrounding area, and invited Mr Swinney to comment on the position. The Minister stated there were three aspects to consider: could closure of Pringle manufacturing be resisted, could the affected workers be absorbed elsewhere in the industry, and could a wider programme of support for employment in the area be developed? The first was not thought to be feasible. The second aspect would be explored through Union and SBC / SEB support teams. Cllr. Marshall and the Union representatives examined these points in detailed questioning with the Minister.

Mr Swinney began looking at the wider picture by emphasising that it was not beneficial to have an overheating Edinburgh economy while the remainder of Scotland was in ‘the deep freeze’’. He said that steps had to be taken to support the remaining companies in the textile sector, through skills development, access to support services, and through cooperation within the Textile Forum. It was also necessary to encourage other employers to move into the Borders, for example through the reshaping of programmes for capital investment, and through SEB initiatives, and he mentioned that the recent reduction in small business rates should help. Cllr. Smith commented that the threshold for businesses to benefit from this scheme was set too low and should be reviewed, and Mr Swinney and Ms Graham accepted that the scheme would be revisited.

Mr Hume pointed out the potential for innovative development work, combining textile technology with that in other Borders industries, and the Minister responded that the Government did indeed want to give local authorities incentives to take innovative action on business development.

In considering the points raised on the councillors’ Action Plan, he stated that the Scottish Biomass Scheme might allow the Government to make a contribution if this was pursued, and that he hoped to work with the Scottish Public Pensions Agency at Tweedbank to extend the range of work being covered, bringing potential for more employment there. He also emphasised the importance of the college infrastructure.

Cllr. Turnbull, in the chair, thanked the Minister for his visit, which Cllr. Paterson had helped to arrange. Cllr. Elliot then obtained a commitment from Mr Swinney to return in a few months time to consider progress. In conclusion, Mr Swinney said he had wanted to come for a first hand view, that he had a list of actions to take away. Proper support was required for those affected, other textile companies should be supported through the Textile Forum, and developments in other sectors of the local economy also required support.