£106 million Lowood Estate development to get underway

EXCLUSIVE by EWAN LAMB

The first phase of a multi-million pound project to deliver hundreds of houses and commercial facilities on farm land in the Central Borders is set to start more than three years after the local council purchased the 44-hectare Lowood Estate from two trusts in the Cayman Islands for £11 million, including costs.

Scottish Borders Council has lodged an application with its own planning authority for permission, involving change of use, to construct a road infrastructure which will include earthworks, initial development platforming, drainage, footways and landscape planting works.

The £106 million Lowood element is part of a much bigger project which will see a major expansion of Tweedbank village estimated to require a total investment of some £220 million.

While critics maintain the scheme is uneconomic and unnecessary, the council claims it is confident the public money needed, including £21 million for infrastructure at Lowood, will be recouped from private developers. A new bridge spanning the River Tweed may be required at some stage in the development programme.

The planning application in the name of council project manager David Johnston is accompanied by more than 20 documents, most of them drawings showing the location of the first section of the roads network.

Scottish Borders Council faced criticism from several quarters after the acquisition of Lowood from the Hamilton family was confirmed in December 2018. 

The Cayman transactions involving island-based companies identified as Lowood Estates Ltd. and Genesis Trust & Corporate Services Ltd were uncovered by former SBC councillor the late Andrew Farquhar via a Freedom of Information [FOI] request.

An earlier information request revealed the list of additional costs incurred by the council on behalf of its taxpayers. These were:  Foreign Options £3,100.00; Surveyors Fees  £80,944.03; Sellers Solicitors Legal Fees & Outlays  £72,170.55; VAT on Surveyors & Legal Fees £30,596.92; Land & Buildings Transaction Tax  £422,250.00; Deed registration Lowood, Melrose  £7,500; Valuation Reports £16,163.80. On top of that the costs of temporary borrowing for the purchase of Lowood were estimated at £780,000.

A so-called Tweedbank Master Plan and Supplementary Planning Guidance [SPG] contained some details of the planned project although the actual number of new homes to be built has not been fixed. In some cases the figure of 300 houses is quoted but in others it is claimed that number will have to increase substantially if the residential element is to be financially viable.

There have also been warnings of flood risks on part of the site, and opponents say the Lowood development will have a scarring effect on an extremely attractive area and will pose a threat to wildlife.

According to a confidential report prepared for the council by consultants Turner & Townsend the grand total needed to complete the Masterplan measures stood at £216.319 million in January 2018, close to a preliminary estimate of £220 million.

The Lowood phase would, said the report, require £106 million, including a £10 million sum to cover acquisition of the estate. Various infrastructure costs linked to the future developments at Tweedbank and set out in the report totalled more than £21 million.

The SPG document produced in 2020 claimed: ""The full development appraisal of the site was considered by Members previously. That initial modelling indicates that the Council’s investment in the site should be recouped through the development phases through the onward sale of the site with 179 jobs created during the construction phase and a further 173 jobs created in the post construction period, and a potential economic impact of £150 million GVA in the economy."

According to consultants LUC: "The high quality environmental setting of the site provides an excellent location for a 'care village' with a dementia hub, the need for which has been identified by the council, where residents and patients could receive therapeutic care.

"The proposed development offers potential to support access along the riverbank, encouraging recreational use of the area, connecting to popular tourist attractions nearby, including Abbotsford House, Melrose Abbey and Scott's View."