Sturgeon adds voice to St Abbs appeal

And for First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, the campaign trail brought her to the Berwickshire and East Lothian coast this week.

The SNP leader started Monday, April 26 with a signing- not documents, but a cider barrel!

Ms Sturgeon was on an early morning visit to the Thistly Cross, the cider-makers based near Dunbar, where she tasted their wares and opened a cidery.

Then it was onward down the coast to Eyemouth and St Abbs in the company of SNP candidate Paul Wheelhouse.

In St Abbs, the First Minister met up with campaigners working to bring an independent lifeboat to the village, posing for photographs in her own charity hoodie.

She later tweeted: “A fantastic visit to @stabbslifeboat - a wonderful story of community spirit and perseverance.

In an interview with ITV Border later that day, Ms Sturgeon stressed that what she described as the “fantastic success” of the Borders Railway project did not mean further work could not be looked into.

“Yes it has been a fantastic success because we did detailed feasibility work, planning work, along the way to make sure that development was founded on the best possible evidence,” she said.

“It has proven to be a success. There are many more people using the railway than we expected. So now we would like to see it extended to Hawick and on to Carlisle but of course we’ve got to do the feasibility work on that.”