A PLEA to ‘let there be lights’ outside a Borders town hall this Christmas has been answered – after it was feared the building would be plunged into darkness.

Back in October community leaders in Greenlaw were shocked to find out that the electricity supply at the now privately-owned town hall building had been cut off.

A total of £7,000 had been raised by Greenlaw Festival Trust to make this year’s display outside the building the best yet.

Now there was the very real prospect of the building remaining in darkness throughout the festivities.

Happily, Scottish Borders Council came to the rescue and now the town hall in The Square is back to its sparkling best.

Greenlaw Town Hall was the administrative centre for the whole of Berwickshire until around the turn of the century, when that role was taken over by Duns.

The town hall fallen into a state of serious disrepair and was handed over to the organisation Scottish Historic Buildings Trust which helped raise  £2m to renovate it.

It was then opened to great fanfare by the now-King Charles III in 2011.

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But the building remained empty and started to get dilapidated again and was eventually sold to Coldingham Investments Limited and later ended up being earmarked as the European headquarters of a leading Chinese porcelain company.

However, as a result of Brexit and Covid-19, the plans were not realised and the building again fell into disrepair.

It then emerged in October this year that its electricity supply had been cut off due to unpaid bills.

Gerry McCann, project manager for Christmas lights fundraising with Greenlaw Festival Trust, said: “With no prior warning suddenly the electricity had been cut off and that had previously been the source of all the electricity for our Christmas lights outside the building.

“We had spent over seven and a half grand worth on new lights. We got a £3,000 grant from the Big Lottery and we raised the rest ourselves, so we had all these new lights but no electricity.

“Berwickshire councillor John Greenwell and Donald Moffat then intervened on our behalf and Scottish Borders Council came to the rescue and the roads and lighting department were absolutely fantastic and did everything that was needed and we turned on the lights on the 8th of December.

“These lights add to the sparkle at Christmas and we have been very successful in the last three years in building up the lights and this year we’d invested more money and suddenly we were faced with being unable to switch them on and everybody was very disappointed, so this was a brilliant outcome at the end of the day and thanks to everyone concerned.”