The Community Council had a well attended AGM last night-this coming year is the last in the four year session and elections for a new council will be held next June. And the coming year promises to be an interesting one.Just as it seemed that the outcome of the two year discussions over a new local plan had just about reached a satisfactory conclusion: no inappropriate over development in this area and especially in Paxton there is a new spectre at the feast. Out of the blue a recently established sub committee of the Scottish Borders Council is been set to work on a study of 'Housing in the Countryside'. It could produce some controversial proposals which may sit uneasily with the local plan. The Borders is primarily a rural community. Farmers, especially the larger landowners (farms rather than body parts) have considerable influence. Farming is not doing well(Much blamed on the vagaries of the CAP) and there is inevitably growing pressure on what is blandly referred to as 'diversification'. This could be as imaginative (and as harmless) as Farmer C's 'Amazing Maize Maze' or it could mean covering green field sites with a variety of building blocks in the interests of 'rural revival' 'Local enterprise' and 'regeneration'. Buzz words in a number of bonnets.
What it is expected is that the 'Housing in the Countryside' will recommend a major relaxation of the rules for development outside the existing towns and villages. The local plan has focused major new development on the central borders-around St Boswells, Melrose, Galashiels in the expectation that the Waverley Line from Edinburgh to will be restored making this region a major commuter paradise. But I suspect that Berwickshire landowners are feeling out on the cold if they nurse ambitions to find a more profitable use of their broad acres than is currently provided by agriculture. Given the uncertainty of whether or not the WL will one day be restored they can point to the certainty of the A1 corridor. An increasingly effective means of communication as the A1 is dual carriagewayed for more of its length. It is now very easy to commute from even deepest SE Berwickshire to the fleshplots of Ould Reekie where property prices are at southern England levels. Thus argue some of our 'destitute' farmers,this is the region ripe for development;more houses, better infrastructure make good use of the countryside in the interests of all those folk who want to base themselves here and work for the common good. Our rural schools will be repopulated, our society rejuvenated and our country people (and especially those with unproductive land to offer for the benefit of all) can go laughing and skipping to the nearest branch of the Royal Bank of Scotland. They don't actually emphasise any profit motive out loud in a public place but you can bet your last Scottish Pound note that's what they are thinking. And if as a result of all this rejuvenation the rural environment is destroyed for ever-ah well broken eggs and omelets and all those Nimbies who object to over development can sell up, take their profits and whinge elsewhere.
Let us suspend our judgement until the Committee reports its findings. But there are so many straws in the wind that it is becoming quite hazardous to venture out in Mr Fish weather. Storm clouds ahead
