Ian Stewart agreed to undertake the two-hour inspection of the A7 corridor after an invitation was extended by Councillor Kenneth Gunn at Monday's meeting of the Eildon area committee.

Joining the pair will be Selkirk community councillor Ian King, the former Scottish Borders Council senior planning officer who has compiled a dossier of photographs, highlighting the burgh's broken pavements, damaged kerbs, blocked drains and unsafe crash barriers.

Maintenance and repair of all trunk roads in the region, comprising carriageway, footways and ground, stretching on either side up to buildings, or where the natural ground takes over, is the responsibility of BEAR, which took over from another private agency, AMEY, in April last year.

At last week's meeting of Selkirk's community council, Mr King went through his detailed report. He said BEAR had claimed it had received only one complaint from Selkirk since taking over and this had been dealt with.

But Mr King had recently toured the town at night in the rain, photographing and documenting overflowing gulleys and blocked drains, as well as broken pavements and damaged kerbs. He listed 23 blocked gulleys, six areas of footpath with defects and 14 areas of carriageway showing surface deterioration/service-cover defects.

Plus, he also noted a potential safety hazard in Ettrick Terrace where the concrete foundation for the safety barrier has been undermined and left exposed; the stub of a lighting column at the Toll and potentially dangerous erosion of the bus shelter metal uprights in Ettrick Terrace.

"When BEAR did its inspection it must have been in daylight and on a dry day with its eyes shut," said Mr King. "Any repairs that have been done have been patchwork and piecemeal at best. Selkirk is a conservation area, but it is being cruelly messed up by the impact of having the A7 trunk road running through the heart of it."

One of the worst examples of the damage being wreaked is the pavement outside the British Red Cross shop, where Tower Street turns into Market Place. A large number of the paving slabs outside shop are cracked and broken, despite having been replaced only a short time ago.

On Monday, Mr Stewart accepted a copy of the dossier and explained that BEAR had suffered a £1.8million funding cut from Transport Scotland.