PLANS for a new high school in Kelso have cleared the final hurdle despite concerns over raceday traffic and drop-off points.

A near-the-post email was circulated amongst members of Scottish Borders Council’s planning committee at the weekend regarding fears over cars and horseboxes on their way to neighbouring Kelso Races.

Monday’s meeting was told that of the 14 fixtures at the Borders track during 2014 only four fell on school days.

And the vast majority of the race-going traffic would arrive and leave outwith school travel times.

Kelso councillor Simon Mountford said: “I agree that most of the race-day traffic will arrive when school is in but horseboxes and other traffic will be arriving much earlier in the day and it would be better if they could use an alternative route to Angraflat Road.” Over the summer several tweaks have been made to the design of the £22 million secondary school and its grounds.

But no objections had been tabled despite the widespread consultancy phases.

Councillor Stuart Bell admitted he was pleased with the plans but hit out at the lack of drop-off and pick-up places.

A total of 16 lay-bys have been drawn into the masterplan for car-travelling pupils.

And Councillor Bell, who lives in Clovenfords, doesn’t believe it is nearly enough, He said: “I was involved in the discussions at my local primary school when it was being planned and we now have a seriously inadequate provision of drop-off places. The 16 places wouldn’t be enough for my school of 100 pupils - yet this is a school of 700.

“The same will happen as happened at my school and we will have parents parked on pavements.” A hands-up poll was carried out at the Kelso High School earlier this year and it showed that 94 were dropped off and 58 collected by car.

Although the new site at Queen’s Croft is almost a mile further from the town centre, roads bosses don’t believe numbers will increase significantly.

Derek Inglis from the roads department said: “We do not want to encourage people to come to school by car.

“The more spaces you provide, the more traffic you get.” Selkirkshire councillor Michelle Ballantyne backed the roads officials. She said: “Sixteen doesn’t sound like a lot of drop-off spaces but we should be discouraging children from being driven to school.” Members of Scottish Borders Council’s planning committee agreed unanimously to pass the plans with drop-off provision to be further explored by officers.