THE Campaign for Borders Rail has urged the council to ensure land is protected as part of the Borders Railway project.

The group has asked Scottish Borders Council to mnake sure that its Local Development Plan properly protects the alignment of the former Waverley Route south to Hawick and Carlisle from the Tweedbank terminus of the new Borders Railway.

In its submission to the Council, CBR welcomes SBC’s strategic support for ‘future extension of the Borders Railway from Tweedbank to Carlisle via Hawick’.

But the group draws attention to the failure to specify protection of a future rail route against prejudicial development in its detailed ‘Settlement Proposals’. CBR launched a campaign for a first phase of rail extension – to Hawick – last year.

CBR Chair Simon Walton saidd: “The Council’s high-level support for protecting a railway line-of-route south from Tweedbank is very welcome, but we were very surprised to find that the proposed extension of the railway towards Hawick and Carlisle is not shown on any of the Settlement Proposals maps in the Development Plan.

“There is nothing on any of these maps to indicate that the route is safeguarded, and many of the Settlement Profiles for towns and villages which will be affected by a railway extension make no mention of it.

“This is a major error which must be corrected before the Development Plan is finalised.

“The failure to properly protect the line of route from breaches by housing and roads from the 1970s to the 1990s added up to 40% to the cost of the Borders Railway opening next year.

“We must ensure that southwards extension from Tweedbank is not made more difficult by a lack of proper planning today.”