PCC Logo

Community Council

of the Royal Burgh of Peebles & District

PCC Logo

Community Council

of the Royal Burgh of Peebles & District

PCC Logo

Who we are

Peebles and District Community Council (PCC) is governed by the Scottish Borders Council (SBC) Scheme for Community Councils (see boundary maps). Read our constitution and standing orders.

We are local people with an interest in our community. Our 18 members may serve for up to 3 years before standing for re-election. We regularly co-opt members for their skills and to fill vacancies.

The six elected Scottish Borders Councillors from East and West Tweeddale are `ex-officio' (non-voting) members who provide a valuable link to and from SBC.

What we do

Our main role is to:

SBC has a responsibility to

  • Consult with PCC about how local services are delivered
  • Inform us of changes to services & issues that may affect our area
  • More info in SBC's Community Council Training Handbook

When & where we meet

Ordinary Meetings of the Council are held on the Second Thursday of each month in the Burgh Hall, Peebles. These meetings normally start at 7:00pm and continue until approximately 9:00 pm.

Our meetings are publicised in the Peeblesshire News the week before the meeting with any changes to time and venue advertised.

Minutes and reports

Minutes and reports from the chair, planning convenor and police are available in Documents.

There is also a copy of the minutes and agenda displayed on the Community Council Noticeboard each month. The board is situated on the right of the archway leading to the Chambers Institution and Quadrangle. A further copy is located in the library. Please ask the librarian for the Community Council folder.

Next ordinary meeting

7pm Thursday 12th September 2024 – Agenda

Come along

All meetings are open to the public.

Each meeting allows 10 minutes for a Question and Answer session for members of the public to ask a question on any subject of relevance to the community council.

Citizen Space – Consultations

Contribute your views on open consultations and find out what changed in response to previous consultations for SBC Citizen Space and Scottish Government consultations. On each site you can scroll down to "see all open consultations".

At the time of writing, some vulnerable communities further down the River Tweed such as Hawick (£140m), Selkirk (£31m) and Galashiels (£3.6m) have had their flood defences strengthened. However, Peebles has not.

The JBA report commissioned on behalf of Scottish Borders Council identified the issues and made recommendations after Storm Frank, 10 years ago. Peebles is very vulnerable and urgent action is required, hopefully before the next serious weather event.

Promises have been made regarding temporary flood barriers, but further flood flow assessments require to be conducted, these require to be done ASAP. The TFA Group, Peebles Resilience Group and Peebles Community Council calls upon our elected representatives to now take this issue up with SBC, Scottish Ministers and others.

Communities are being proactive and doing everything possible with the resources provided. However, Peebles requests at least the same level of support already provided to communities further downstream.

Postscript

Since the JBA report was produced a great deal of additional analysis and research has been done. This has resulted in upgraded forecasts and newly published guidance. Much of this being introduced in the last twelve months. This new guidance includes from SEPA “Climate change allowances for flood risk assessment in land use planning”. This is now version 6 dated 25 February 2025.

Historically, SEPA recommended a universal 20% allowance in increased flow for climate change. However, in the light of the latest data and analysis, for the River Tweed this has now been increased to an uplift of 59% (JBA report used 33%).

The historical data shows that the January 1949 floods recorded a river height of 4.115 m above normal with a flow of 721 m3/S. This is considerably higher than Storm Frank in 2015 which was 3.654 m above normal with a peak flow of 631.1 m3/S. Even increasing the storm Frank flows potentially by 59% should give us all cause for concern.

Read the full report

Colin Kerr
Chairman, Walkerburn Community Council
Leader, Tweeddale Flood Advisory Group

Paul Spence
Leader, Peebles Flood Resilience Community Group
Member, Tweeddale Flood Advisory Group

Peter Maudsley
Chairman, Peebles and District Community Council
Member, Tweeddale Flood Advisory Group

Tweeddale Flood Advisory Group Facebook

Article feedback secretary@ccrbpeebles.co.uk.

News/20260126.html

Planners recently told Granton Homes their Kingsmeadows application would be refused. Before a decision was issued, they appealed.

Peebles Community Council has submitted a comprehensive objection setting out why the community believes the proposal breaches 22 planning policies – NPF4 policies 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 16, 20 and 22; and LDP2 policies EP1, EP2, EP3, EP9, EP10, EP11, EP12, EP13, EP15, IS8, PMD2 and PMD5.

Expert reports

We wish to thank two qualified experts for volunteering their time and expertise to provide expert assessments on behalf of our community.

The impact to trees and the woodland was assessed by a retired Chartered Arboriculturalist and former Registered Consultant of the Institute of Chartered Foresters with 40 years forestry and arboriculture experience, specialising in trees and planning matters for over 30 years. Read the full arboriculture report.

The ecological impact was assessed by a Chartered Environmentalist, Member of the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management (CIEEM) and professional ecologist with 30 years’ experience of assessing the ecological impact of development proposals in the Scottish Borders. Read the full ecology report.

Issues

Granton request renewed permission – with reduced protection for the woodland.

  • Condition 7 is vital protection for this woodland in the Peebles Conservation Area on the Tweed Special Area of Conservation (SAC).
  • NatureScot and SBC’s ecologist agree that Condition 7 is necessary for the European Protected Species (EPS) in the Tweed.

The issues seem fundamental.

  • This proposal for luxury flats does nothing to alleviate SBC’s affordable housing emergency.
  • The proposal fails many policies, for example the three veteran and 37 notable trees that would be at risk breaches NPF4 policy 6.
  • The applicant provides no ecological or other expert reports to support this application – the reports available expired years ago and can’t be relied on for this decision.
  • We now know that flood levels in the Tweed are half a metre higher than previously believed; this proposal breaches LDP2 policy IS8 by being in the flood plain and doesn’t provide a competent Flood Risk Assessment.

We ask that this appeal be dismissed and permission refused.

More Save Kingsmeadows

Article feedback secretary@ccrbpeebles.co.uk.

News/20251228.html

Dear community partners,

I’m getting in touch from the Returning Officer’s team to share an Open Letter: Invitation to Engage, Accessibility at Elections and to warmly invite your support.

We’re committed to making elections across the Scottish Borders as accessible, inclusive and welcoming as possible. As a first step in a wider engagement programme, we want to listen to people who may face barriers to voting and shape our plans around what we hear.

  • Please share the open letter with the people you support—especially anyone who has experienced barriers to voting (e.g., sight loss, deafness/BSL needs, mobility challenges, neurodivergence, learning disabilities, mental health difficulties, or other access needs).
  • Encourage people to contact us directly. We’d like to hear first‑hand about what would make voting easier—from polling station accessibility and transport to information formats, communication support, and any other part of the process.
  • Tell us the best way to engage. We can host in‑person sessions, set up digital meetings, or visit groups so we can listen and learn together.

How to get in touch:
elections@scotborders.gov.uk
Phone: 01835 826556
Post: Returning Officer, Council Headquarters, Newtown St Boswells, Melrose TD6 0SA

Warm regards,

Declan Hall
Democratic Services Team Leader
Scottish Borders Council
Tel: 01835 826556

Article feedback secretary@ccrbpeebles.co.uk.

News/20251217.html

Members of the public attending our 13 Nov meeting complained that SBC appeared not to be following important environmental regulations – potentially illegally – and asked us to raise a complaint with SBC.

This follows the Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland (ERCS) recently writing to SBC expressing their view that approval of the Kingsmeadows applications without appropriate environmental assessment – as planners said they were minded to do – would be grounds for judicial review arising from breach of Habitats Regulations.

SBC declined to publish the correspondence with ERCS on the planning portal, despite a request to do so. Members of the public also asked PCC to repeat the request to publish the correspondence with ERCS.

We complained that

  • SBC appears to be failing legal duties to safeguard European Protected Species (EPS)
  • Failures appear to stem from a misunderstanding of the law
  • Legal advice from ERCS appears to be being ignored
  • Legal concerns haven't been published on the planning portal and remain unanswered
  • Regulations require proof of no impact to EPS – beyond scientific doubt, based on data
  • Yet planners say they are minded to decide without appropriate environmental assessment

We ask SBC to immediately

  • Reject these applications
  • Or pause them while the legal complaints are investigated.

Read our complaint to SBC here.

Add your complaint

If you share our concerns, we ask that you complain to SBC as well.

Complaints can be made:

Article feedback secretary@ccrbpeebles.co.uk.

News/20251117.html

Home door lock types Home door lock types

Domestic CCTV advice Domestic CCTV advice

Useful links

Courtesy of PC Gary Beaumont, Police Scotland/Poileas Alba.

SBRC

Cyber Scotland Partnership

Cyber General

Vehicle security Vehicle security

As always feedback by email on secretary@ccrbpeebles.co.uk.

News/20251114.html

Peebles Community Council recognises that beavers are a formerly extinct native species which arguably belong in our local landscape and may offer benefits including wetland habitat creation, improved water quality, and potential contribution to natural flood management.

Nature Scot have made a call for interest in beaver release to new catchments. Anyone with an interest can get in touch directly with NatureScot via the online webform before November 30.

Consequently, we have discussed briefly the pros and cons of future reintroduction of beavers to Peeblesshire, with a variety of views expressed. Discussion is hypothetical at present given that no specific proposal has been made, however we note that, to be acceptable, any proposal would require the provision of a properly resourced plan including educational, management, mitigation and landowner support measures.

As the introduction of beavers to a new area has implications that may be seen as both positive or negative dependent upon viewpoint, Peebles Community Council welcome feedback by email on secretary@ccrbpeebles.co.uk.

News/20251113.html

Peebles Community Council called for Live Borders funding to be restored to sustainable levels and an end to the threats to sporting and cultural services after considering a report into the "Joint Transformation" of Live Borders at its 12 June meeting.

A relentless series of escalating cost cutting saw SBC effectively halve payments in real terms to Live Borders since 2016, SBC data show (fig. 1).

The blue trend shows the shortfall between actual SBC payments to Live Borders (grey) vs payments needed to keep up with inflation (coloured) – with 2024 payments half that of 2016.

Live Borders Management Fee 2016–24 1. Live Borders funding 2016–24

However, funding from Scottish Government to the 32 local councils in Scotland remained flat (fig. 2), with average culture & leisure cuts less than half the level of SBC cuts to Live Borders.

In order to protect much needed services, Peebles Community Council calls for:

  • Funding to be restored to a sustainable level
  • A halt to threats to privatise, transfer or transform sporting and cultural venues
  • Scrapping of the current Live Borders consultation, which is attracting high levels of criticism
  • Meaningful engagement with the public on SBC's full transformation agenda.

Live Borders Management Fee 2016–24 2. Govt funding to councils stable

Live Borders was set up by SBC in order to ensure that they meet their obligations under the legislation to provide adequate facilities for recreational, sporting, cultural and social activities. That obligation rests with SBC and cannot be farmed out. Consequently, SBC have a duty of care for the oversight of Live Borders.

PCC's view is that our community should not be punished by cuts to much needed services, with any pain spread across SBC's entire £344m budget.

Read the full PCC Briefing.

Submit comments to SBC's consultation.

News/20250612.html

News archive