New home given go-ahead despite opposition to losing part of village green

Melrose developer JSC Estates’ application to build a four-bedroom one-and-three quarter storey house off Eddy Road have been approved following submission of a revised application to Scottish Borders Council planners.

However, councillors, meeting via video link on Monday, were divided over the plans and the loss of green space that will occur, despite changes to the plans drawn up by Galashiels-based Ferguson Planning.

“This is the third application for a residential property on this site with the first two being withdrawn and refused,” the council’s principal planning officer Barry Fotheringham said. “This is a revised resubmission from the second applicant and it is now considered to be acceptable.”

Explaining the difference between this application and the previous, submitted in November 2018, he added: “The previous one showed a lot smaller area of public open space. What the applicants have done is move the boundary hedge further north by around three metres which makes the house site a bit smaller but does increase at the same time the size of the area of public open space. We feel we’ve reached a suitable compromise in this case.”

The land, known as the village green is privately owned, however its lawful use is well established as informal amenity ground having been used as such since around 1910.

Two memorial benches there will be repositioned nearer the Main Street roadside, with officers stipulating in one of 16 sets of conditions that the applicant carries out planting, surfacing and repositioning of the benches on the land as well as maintaining the area going forward.

That condition failed to appease three of the nine councillors who took to a roll-call vote on the application, though.

Galashiels councillor Andy Anderson said: “I’m not entirely sure it’s enough to overturn the decision on the last application for this site.

“I have concerns about the loss of a local green space, for albeit not a formal public space, it is well used.”

“On balance it results in a loss of valuable open space in the centre of the village. I would like to propose we reject this application.”

His calls were seconded by East Berwickshire councillor Helen Laing, who added: “I agree the applicant has made lots of compromises here but still over half of this space is being lost. Clearly this space is well-used and well-loved by the community and I don’t’ think the building justifies the loss of this green space.”

Aside from Melrose councillor Tom Miers, though, the rest of the committee were satisfied with the site layout and welcomed a promise to widen Eddy Road, and repair a retaining wall there.

Kelso councillor Simon Mountford said: “Looking at the number of compromises have been made by the applicant to accommodate the comments by officers, I think that now the recommendation is right. The site itself means taking away some community areas but the design I think is appropriate. It reflects the vernacular of Newstead and I think the way they have designed it there is going to be no loss of residential amenity. The current iteration of these plans do reflect the reservations and objections that led to the refusal of the previous two.”

The application received 14 written objections but Newstead Community Council said it had “no issues” with it.

It wrote: “We would however look for assurance that any common ground towards the road will become the responsibility of the owner to maintain and not allowed fall into a state of disrepair at the centre of this historic village.”

Jedburgh councillor Scott Hamilton added: “Building on an area where there is green space and a community area is never an easy thing to do and a community can find it difficult to go forward with that, but this design lends itself to Newstead.”