Scottish Borders

Latest News for the Scottish Borders

Gaberlunzie confesses to a serious case of 'cobbler's bairns' when it comes to this story by Fred Plasman of Austin, a retired software consultant for IBM who with his wife Carol came to Scotland in July for two reasons: We expected cooler weather, and the last Friday in July is the Langholm Common Riding. Common Riding — trail ride and a parade with everyone participating either on horseback or on foot — is an annual event celebrated in Scottish border towns.

Jedburgh should be turned into the gateway to Scotland and the town could become Scotland's digital gateway, leading the way in internet access technology. Campaigners in the town have been calling for action from Holyrood and Scottish Borders Council (SBC) to combat what they see as severe economic, physical and social decline.

In April, the SAC opened its first consulting office in the north east of England. The office, in Wooler, Northumberland, will provide a focus for SAC Farm Business Services in the area. SAC has been operating consultancy for farmers in the north east for the past 24 months when consultant Ian Cairns launched the delivery of Farm Business Services direct to farmers in the region.

Britain's race to develop wind farms to counter climate change threatens the country's security against airborne attacks, according to the Ministry of Defence. The MoD has spotted a previously-unsuspected problem where rows of offshore turbines create vast blind spots in the early warning radar network that has defends the UK shores since the Cold War. It could allow Russian bombers, such as those which have regularly been intercepted by the RAF since Moscow reinstated patrols last year, or a civilian airliner hi-jacked by terrorists, to reach the UK undetected.

A regional attitude in an intriguing thing. In Scotland the north east is quite different from the English north east. So Gaberlunzie was accidentally lured into reading about the first wind farm of 759 acres to be sold in the North East going on the market in County Durham. Called High Hedley Hope Farm this is alivestock and arable farm, being sold with 3 wind turbines (one named Tina Turner, (and the others?) with planning permission for 4 more to be constructed shortly.

Plexus, the design and manufacturing services company, located at Kelso, has secured a contract to become a global volume manufacturing partner for Irisys, the Northampton-based leading thermal technology company. The multi-million pound contract is initially for the manufacture of the companyâ€™s thermal imagers and is expected to develop to include people counting systems later this year.

A deal between the Scottish local authority representative body COSLA and the new Scottish Government has allowed a freeze in Council Tax levels for the coming financial year. In return for increased government funding, councils however have had to commit to a number of other issues including reducing class sizes and increasing pre-school provision. One of the saddest losses will be that of the Quality Award winning The Computer Bus from the Library and Information Services which in June 2004 won a major Quality Award for the " Innovative Use of Technology."

Pupils are to be closely supervised when they use the internet at school under new guidelines issued by Scottish Borders Council (SBC). The rules, recently approved by councillors, are designed to keep pupils safe on the internet and prevent them from posting inappropriate Wikipedia material from school computers.

J Barbour & Sons, the name synonymous with wax jackets, has announced the imminent closure of its knitwear and weaving plant in the Scottish Borders, which will result in the loss of 46 jobs.
The Tweedbank site near Galashiels sought voluntary redundancies last year when plans were made to reduce operations at the plant plans which the company had hoped to be temporary.
But having engaged in engthy discussions and negotiationswith the union Unite, the decision has been reached to close the plant completely. The closure takes place on the 31 January 2008.

What the medical sector would call '404' moments seems to have occured quite frequently in the UK at a variety of NHS hospitals. NHS authorities in Grampianhave admitted losing confidential patient information on eight separate occasions in the last five years. Details of the incidents emerged, as nine English health trusts said they too had lost private patient information affecting hundreds of thousands of people.

Traders in the Borders town of Peebles are bidding to lure shoppers away from Edinburgh by starting a campaign to promote the benefits of Christmas shopping in the area. More than 25 Lothian buses in Edinburgh will now carry the slogan: "Discover a different shopping experience in Scotland's most independent retailing town."

An investigation by The Southern Reporter revealed computers in Border schools were used to post racist and anti-gay comments with dozens of illicit entries submitted to Wikipedia between October 2005 and January 2007 and, despite having since been removed from the site's main pages, can still be accessed by the general public.

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