I think that we have a very good local shop just now, which offers an extremely good range of products and services. I am not sure that another general store would be a good thing and would probably detract from what is currently on offer and may in fact jeopardise the existing shop although others may not agree.

As far as the chippy is concerned, Jimmy Farish did receive planning permission to convert part of the shop into a chippy but chose not to proceed. My understanding is that Harry Ramsden’s looked at this issue but were not interested although given the fact that Tweedbank now has 1800 people living in it and that the new developments taking place will probably take us to near 2500, I think we could sustain a chip shop so maybe Steve and Jimmy could discuss this again.

It is good to see a hairdresser open once again and hopefully this will continue, as quite a few people were very impressed with the last hairdresser.

As for the pub. This would be an excellent development and one which the Community council and myself have supported for a very long time. The site for the pub is still owned by Karen and Sandy Craig and they really need to be the ones to make a decision to either develop the pub or to sell the site.

As for the Post Office, I was interested to see that according to the forum I was not involved in this issue. Nothing could be further from the truth and in fact lots of discussions took place to try and identify somebody else to operate e the Post Office but unfortunately nobody willing could be found despite the efforts of the Community council and myself.