Selkirk Common Good row rumbles on
Published 18 Oct 2011 08:27
0 Comments
Share this
SELKIRK Community Council chairman Gordon Edgar has accused Scottish Borders Council of acting illegally after it refused to hand back cash it received for selling land owned by the local community.
The Royal Burgh of Selkirk Community Council previously heard the local authority was due the town's Common Good Fund £68,000 following the sale of the now developed Rosebank Quarry in September 2005.
But, last month, Councillors voted to keep that capital receipt and set it against the £178,000 which they claimed had been spent on the town's Victoria Halls which it also later emerged belonged to the community.
Speaking at the community council's meeting in the Victoria Halls on Monday night, Mr Edgar said: "It's illegal not to put it (the money) back in but it would cost too much to challenge that."
Councillor Vicky Davidson, who had campaigned to have the cash returned to the Selkirk Common Good Fund, admitted she was disappointed not to have the support of her Selkirkshire colleagues, Councillors Kenneth Gunn and Carolyn Riddell-Carre.
She pointed out the Tait Hall in Kelso, which has had £194,000 spent on it by the council over the past 10 years, was also owned by the town's Common Good but that it was not being asked to contribute towards the cost of repairs.
Dr Lindsay Neil, vice-chairman of the Community Council, who also questioned what had happened to the interest gained on the cash during the 16 months between the council discovering the quarry land belonged to the Common Good Fund and the meeting last month, said: "It's another fudge in the accounting system."
The community councillor went on to accuse Councillor Gunn of "hypocrisy" and, in the absence of Councillor Carre, asked him why he had voted against Selkirk.
But Councillor Gunn claimed that had he voted differently the town could have been sent a bill of up to £1million for repairs to its Common Good assets.
"I did not vote against Selkirk," he said. "We have got off fairly light. The Common Good in Selkirk could not have afforded the work that has been done and the work that still needs to be done."
This article appeared in Border Telegraph 18 Oct 11
Return to the main index, get more from this section or browse our News archives.
