THE Standards Commission for Scotland (SCS) is to hold a hearing into the conduct of SNP backbench councillor Alastair Cranston.

It follows an exhaustive investigation by another watchdog – the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life (CES) – which concluded that the 64-year-old member for Hawick & Denholm had breached the code of conduct for councillors by failing to declare a business interest.

Mr Cranston received notification of that conclusion last month and has since been waiting to discover the next move from the SCS which confirmed last week that a hearing would take place at Scottish Borders Council’s Newtown HQ. The date has still to be confirmed.

He is the second Hawick councillor to face such an ordeal in the current SBC term. Last year, Lib Dem Ron Smith was suspended for three months from all planning matters after he was deemed to have breached the code.

Councillor Smith, in his role as chairman of the planning committee, had failed to declare a non-pecuniary interest in a planning application for a food takeaway shop.

He was an elder of a neighbouring church whose kirk session had objected to the proposal.

That breach, however, was considered to have been made in good faith and Mr Smith was unanimously re-appointed chairman of the planning committee after serving his suspension.

The case against businessman Mr Cranston, who was elected in 2012, would appear to be more serious, relating as it does to his alleged advocacy – at various SBC and community council meetings – of anaerobic biogas digestion, a gas-generating process in which his two companies specialise.

A spokesperson for the Standards Commission said: “The complaint alleges that Councillor Cranston has contravened the code of conduct in terms of…declaration of interests which deal with the application of the objective test and financial and non-financial interests.” Councillor Stuart Bell, leader of the nine-strong SNP group of which Mr Cranston is a member, declined to comment.