IT took elected members of Scottish Borders Council less than two hours on Thursday to decide that a two-storey visitor centre for the Great Tapestry of Scotland should be located in Galashiels at a cost of £6.7m.

A bid led by Hawick Independent councillor Watson McAteer to scrap the project was defeated by 26 votes to seven.

The decision means the new facility will, subject to the resolution of outstanding funding, planning, acquisition and management issues, open to the public in April, 2020.

It will be built on the site of the Poundstretcher store at the foot of High Street – which will be demolished - and linked to the listed former Post Office, which has been empty for the past decade, next door. Construction is due to begin in the summer of 2018.

In voting for that location, councillors agreed to write off the £340,000 they have already spent pursuing the option of creating a permanent home for the giant artwork – which charts the history of Scotland in 160 embroidered panels – at Tweedbank.

A report by corporate transformation director Rob Dickson recommended that the council should maintain its Tweedbank capital spending commitment of £3.5m for the project in Galashiels – repayable at £208,000 a year for 30 years.

Another £2.5m will come from the Scottish Government’s blueprint programme to exploit the economic dividend from the Borders Railway which carried 1.3million passengers in its first year of operation.

Council officers will now attempt to bridge the £700,000 funding gap by preparing grant bids to the Heritage Lottery Fund, Historic Environment Scotland and the Scottish Government’s Town Regeneration Capital Fund – sources of cash for which the Tweedbank site would not have been eligible.

Mr Dickson told the meeting that the business case for Galashiels – and the subsequent release of £2.5m towards the project from Scottish culture secretary Fiona Hyslop MSP - had been strengthened by the active participation and support of local regeneration group Energise Galashiels.

That group, he said, had harnessed support for the Galashiels option from a range of organisations, including the Scottish Borders Tourism Partnership, Galashiels Community Council, the MacArts centre and the Scottish Borders Chamber of Commerce.

Commenting after the vote, Mike Gray of Energise Galashiels told the Border Telegraph: “This is a game-changing opportunity to regenerate our town and to have Galashiels develop as a visitor destination and a gateway for the Scottish Borders.

“We have been greatly encouraged by the support Galashiels has had from the tapestry trustees, from across the Borders and from our own community, business and arts groups.

“Energise Galashiels is looking forward to working closely with all partners to make the tapestry an outstanding success.”

At the meeting, the case for Galashiels was led by SBC leader David Parker (Ind) who said the debate over the visitor centre mirrored the history of Scotland as depicted in the tapestry.

“From difficult beginnings we, like Scotland, have survived blood and skirmishes to reach an age of enlightenment,” said Councillor Parker. “Hopefully that enlightenment will guide us to a happy ending today.”

He said the council was committed to the economic regeneration of towns in the region and he cited past investments to boost visitor numbers at Abbotsford House, the Heart of Hawick, Hawick’s Wilton Lodge Park, the Sir Walter Scott courtroom in Selkirk and the Jim Clark Museum in Duns.

“As a council we are ambitious for the Borders and this will have a massive transformational effect on Galashiels and the wider region,” he added.

Councillor Michelle Ballantyne, leader of the Conservative opposition group at Newtown, defended her past opposition to the Tweedbank option and said she did not believe that if the tapestry did not come to Galashiels the town would “die on its feet”.

“However, although I accept there are risks and this is a huge amount of public money, I am persuaded that this is a much better proposition than Tweedbank, but we must all work together to make a success of it,” said Mrs Ballantyne.

But Councillor McAteer said he had not been persuaded.

He recalled that, a year ago, when the council had asked the public for online comments on SBC spending, their top priority had been to abandon the tapestry project.

“The people of Hawick who elected me do not want to see £6.7m spent on something which will do little for the rest of the Borders,” he stated.

“Placing the tapestry in Galashiels, which already has a £7m transport interchange and attracts two thirds of all the retail spend in the Borders, is ignoring the rest of the region. The electorate is not convinced and I urge you to ignore the emotional blackmail.”

In the ensuing debate, Mr McAteer’s call to scrap the tapestry project was endorsed by fellow Hawick councillors David Paterson (Ind), Stuart Marshall (Ind), George Turnbull (Con) and Ron Smith (Lib Dem). The sixth Hawick member, Alastair Cranston (SNP), was absent from the meeting.

Councillor Paterson said that with the council facing a funding shortfall of “around £10m” in the next financial year and with increased pressure on services for the elderly, the tapestry spend could not be supported.

Councillor Marshall stated: “As a cash-strapped council we should not and cannot be seen to be borrowing millions of pounds for such a project.”

Also wanting no action were councillors Rory Stewart (Ind, Jedburgh) and Gordon Edgar (Ind, Selkirkshire).

“We’ve paid off additional needs assistants in our schools and considered recent reports about the urgent need for investment in our roads and bridges,” said Mr Stewart. “Those who elected us do not want this money spent on the tapestry.”

And Mr Edgar, who is executive member for roads and infrastructure, said: “I cannot support this when we are struggling to retain our roads and school assets. We should be concentrating on promoting this region’s greatest asset – our scenery.”

But Councillor Catriona Bhatia (Lib Dem, Tweeddale East) said opponents of the project were overstating the impact on the council’s finances.

“We have £300m in our capital programme over the next 10 years so £3.5m is not disproportionate for a project of such huge importance to the regeneration of Galashiels,” she said.

And Councillor Stuart Bell (SNP, Tweeddale East), executive member for economic development stated: “If we want to deal with the economic challenges we face in this region, we have to grow the economy and that means helping our towns to attract visitors, sustain jobs and bring new investment.”

After the meeting, tapestry trustee Alistair Moffat, who had watched the debate from the public benches, said: “To see this magnetic wonderful object [the tapestry] housed in Galashiels will fill me with pride as a Borderer.

“Its popularity will help regenerate this once-great textile town.”