AN AMBITIOUS plan to revitalise a ‘blight on the landscape’ site in a Borders town and convert it into a community asset has received a £7,000 boost.

For two years Silverbuthall Community Development Trust, working with A Greener Hawick, has been researching the ownership and routes to acquiring the former Wilton South and St Margaret’s Church site, between Commercial Road and Laing Terrace in Hawick.

Some of the aims of the project are to provide much-needed off-road parking, facilitate the move to electric vehicles, provide a bin store off Commercial Road and create an off-street space for community interaction.

The trust is shortly to apply to the Scottish Land Fund for finance to acquire the site and take the plans forward.

Ahead of that the trust needs to carry out a public consultation to seek the views of townsfolk.

At a meeting of Hawick Common Good Sub-Committee last week, members agreed to a grant of £7,000 to allow that to be carried out.

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At the meeting, trust spokesperson Andy Maybury said: “At this stage we are looking for funding from various sources but it is still relatively early doors and the funding we are asking for here is to conduct a community poll.

“This site has been a blight on the landscape for a good number of years, I remember it coming up at community council many times with people saying, ‘Something needs to be done’, but there were problems with its ownership.

“We have now found a way through this and found a mechanism to bring it into community ownership, which is key. What we are trying to do at this stage, before we go through formal acquisition through the Scottish Land Fund, is to get as much feedback as possible from the people of Hawick, right across the town.

“The ‘Village Poll’ mechanism allows people to chip in their tuppence-worth. It will be a public space that anyone can access.

“We do have as one of the strings on our bow some commercial aspects to claim a bit of money from the parking bays and EV charging.”