History of Scottish Borders Council

The Scottish Borders region within South East Scotland covers over 1800 square miles of some of the most scenic countryside in Europe.

The Council's area comprises the four historic counties of Berwickshire, Roxburghshire, Peeblesshire and Selkirkshire. These 4 counties contained a number of historic Burghs and Royal Burghs, including the famous Border towns of Duns, Hawick, Jedburgh, Kelso, Lauder, Peebles and Selkirk.

Regions

In 1975, the historic county councils and their constituent Burgh Councils were swept away under a re-organisation, which split Scotland into eight regions: Highland, Grampian, Central, Strathclyde, Fife, Lothian, Dumfries and Galloway and Borders. The area around Heriot was ceded from Midlothian into the Borders Regional Council area.

Each of these regions was then sub-divided into a number of district councils, a total of 52 throughout Scotland. Of these, there were four in the Borders area:

Berwickshire, in the east, was slightly reduced in size from the former county it superseded.
Ettrick and Lauderdale was a new area formed in the Central Borders around Galashiels;
Roxburgh was formed from the former County of Roxburghshire less the area around Melrose and
Tweeddale was formed from the former County of Peebleshire with some minor adjustments.

Regional Councils

The Regional Councils were charged with delivering the major services, Education, Social Work, Roads and Transport, and Planning and the Districts were responsible for Housing, Leisure and Recreation, Parks and Open Spaces, Environmental Health and Cleansing.

In 1995 a further re-organisation of Local Government saw the Regional and District Councils dismantled and replaced with thirty-two new unitary Councils. In the Borders, the boundaries of the new Scottish Borders Unitary Council were coterminous with those of the Borders Regional Council which it replaced.

Re-organisation

At re-organisation, it was decided that the Scottish Borders Council would be comprised of 58 single member wards, the same number of members as the sum of the four district councils which it replaced. Elections were held in May 1995 and fifty-eight councillors were elected for a term of four years.

A subsequent review of electoral boundaries by the Boundary Commission for Scotland reduced the number of Councillors to 34 and these recommendations came into effect at the elections in 1999.

The wards were changed again for the elections of 2007: there were still 34 councillors, but the region was split up into 11 wards. 10 of the wards had 3 elected members, and one had 4. A map of the present ward is available.

Elections

The elections held in May 2003 returned a Council comprising of 13 Independents, 11 Conservatives, 8 Liberal Democrats and 2 Scottish National Party Councillors.

The elections held in May 2007 returned a Council comprising of 11 Conservatives, 10 Liberal Democrats and 6 Scottish National Party, 5 independent and 2 Borders Party Councillors.

Full details of the current regime can be found in our 'Council' section.