EDDLESTON AND DISTRICT COMMUNITY COUNCILMeetings take place in the Village Hall every month during the school year - usually on the 4th Wednesday at 8pm except for July, August and December. These meetings are open to the public and there is an opportunity to 'have your say' on matters which concern you. Have a look at the Events page for more details. You can also download the minutes, agendas and annual accounts from the online library We are always looking for new blood so if you would like to join, do please get in touch. Elections are held annually in June but we are able to co-opt members during the year. EDCC covers the area on either side of the A703 from Leadburn to the Mailingsland Crossroads. It is non-political in nature and acts as a conduit to and from Scottish Borders Council on matters relevant to the community. EDCC views are taken into account on all major planning applications and it is given the opportunity to comment on a wide range of SBC reports at the draft stage. Given the attendance of SBC councillors at meetings, as well as allowing opportunity to speak directly to them, it provides a mechanism for identifying the best way to approach SBC on a range of matters. Like all the other clubs and societies in the village EDCC makes a difference to village life. In the past year or so, EDCC has had two notice boards erected in the village; purchased Christmas lights for the village hall; had the bus-shelter in the centre of the village painted; and initiated repairs to pavements in the village. LOCAL PLAN UPDATEThe Local Plan has been many a long month in consultation and the 'final' version has now been agreed. What this means for Eddleston is that only one site remains in the plan - the one at the top of Burnside. The main reason for this (in addition to the potentially more serious flooding problems with the other possible sites), is the consensus within the village that we don't want more than one site to be approved and that we don't want more than 20 houses in total, of which around 15% should be designated as affordable housing. This is the smallest of the suggested sites with the others allowing for potentially many more houses. Click on the link to see SBC's Planning Brief for Burnside http://www.tinyurl.com/j5yz4 Should a planning application be submitted, a full Flood Risk Assessment will be carried out. This would look at the impact on the watercourse and assess what mitigation measures would be needed.
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CHAIRMAN'S ANNUAL REPORT 2009We have continued to hold regular meetings and to raise concerns with local authorities. As a specific example we have responded very efficiently to planning applications, thanks particularly to Jonathan Dennis. These have included applications for chalets near the entrance to the Cringletie Hotel (which are now the subject of an appeal) and for new buildings adjacent to the Old Mill behind the Barony Castle Hotel.
More generally we have continued to ask for collection of garden waste, raised concerns over road safety, supported the Hall Committee in the Christmas Bazaar and supported the school in its campaign to retain the same number of teacher posts.
All of this activity depends upon a great deal of unseen work and it is appropriate that we thank the following people along with others too many to name individually.
- In particular Margot Porter, Kathy Greenwood and Ambi Whiildman who have all helped to fill the role of Secretary.
- Jonathan Dennis our Planning Officer
- Colin Small who stands down this year
- Kathy Greenwood our webmaster
- Peter Mulholland our honorary auditor
- Scottish Borders Council together with Cllrs Neil Calvert, Catriona Bhatia and Willie Armstrong for their on-going support
As I consider the recent activities of the Community Council, it is clear that it has great opportunities, but that it faces considerable challenges. By coincidence this AGM is being held as the Scottish government publishes the results of the deliberations of the CC Working Group. I want to move on to consider the role of the CCs, the practical difficulties of achieving those objectives, the proposals made by the Working Group and the steps that might be taken to increase our effectiveness.
Purpose of the Council - The purpose of Community councils as defined in the Act is as follows.
“In addition to any other purpose which a community council may pursue, the general purpose of a community council shall be to ascertain, co-ordinate and express to the local authorities for its area, and to public authorities, the views of the community which it represents, in relation to matters for which those authorities are responsible, and to take such action in the interests of that community as appears to it to be expedient and practicable.” In other words the initial law recognised that there are two ways in which CC might act: to represent the views of the community and to carry out anything else that might be to the benefit of the community.
In the new documents the government reiterates this initial strategy and continues to place great emphasis upon the need for CC to ensure that they represent the views of the community. If it is to do this it is essential that a significant number of people from the village participate in the meetings. The present reality is that we struggle to get an adequate number of residents to attend the CC meetings and have difficulty recruiting new members to the Community Council.
It seems to me that we do as we are asked and represent the views of the community very efficiently and in that regard achieve all that we can with our limited resources and negligible executive authority. What we fail to do is to indentify any other way in which we can act for the good of the community and so engender community spirit and in the long run interest in CC activity. I will return to this in a moment. In a very exciting experiment, two CCs are being given a lump sum of £15,000 each. In the long run, it will be very interesting to see what is achieved with the additional funds and to discover if the experiment is to be extended. How might we improve our effectiveness?
A number of us met informally a few days ago to discuss this issue and suggest that in order to promote greater interest and involvement in Community Council activity, an informal community meeting should be held soon after the summer specifically to discuss with many of our fellow residents, the facilities and activities of the village with the specific view to identifying new opportunities for the CC. This might be in supporting new activities in the village (such as a Burns Supper) helping to provide new facilities or any other way of enhancing community well being. Details of this will be considered at our next meeting in August with a view to having the different meeting in September. I personally believe that it is in this way that we can increase the effectiveness of the Community Council and build upon the successes of the past
| Eddleston District Community Council was set up in 1997. Established under the Local Government Scotland Act 1973, its role is to represent to the local authority, the views of the community and to take such action in the interests of the community as appears to it to be expedient and practicable. Scottish Borders Council have a duty to consult us on a range of matters which affect us - e.g. the delivery of local services, and all planning applications  The picture shows one of the two noticeboards bought with the help of a grant from Scottish Borders Council to whom we are most grateful. As you can see, this one is sited at the Old Orchard. The other one is in Bellfield Road close to the church. Notices are primarily for Community Council Business but we are happy to help publicise other village events so if you have a notice you would like to display, please contact Kathy Greenwood on 01721 730654 or email via the web site CONTACT DETAILSThe council is made up of eight elected members together with our three local Scottish Borders Councillors - Neil Calvert, Catriona Bhatia and Willie Archibald. Also actively involved is our Community Police Liaison Officer - PC Alan MacDonald. Treasurer's Report At the end of the year EDCC held funds of £767.01, with £275.28 spent but not cleared as of 31/3/09. This means that some of the excess funds from the previous year have been spent on village projects namely: Football Cup; Eddleston Primary School’s planting scheme (£200 used on fruit bushes and tub planting), Eddleston Pre-school Nursery (£172.34); a new notice board for the village hall (£206.83); mulled wine for the Hall Christmas Fayre. This represents a wider coverage of village groups than in previous years when the bulk of funding went on the Senior Citizens’ event. While the demise of this event is disappointing, it is a welcome turn of events that the Community Council has been able to help so many different groups this year. Accounts can be found in the library
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