De-categorising of the Pentland Hills Area of Great Landscape Value (AGLV)

The Community Council is seeking your opinion on the proposal put forward by consultants for SBC to remove the Area of Great Landscape Value (AGLV) status of our part of the Pentland Hills. 

The proposal comes about due to the rationalisation of landscape categories.  Whilst this is a good idea in that it will reduce a certain amount of red tape, the Community Council regards this section of the Pentland Hills to be as equally important as any other due to the diversity of flora & fauna (witness the SSSI & RAMSAR sites), history, potential & actual tourism and recreation to name a few.

The Pentland Hills AGLV is the only such area in the Borders to be completely de-categorised.

The Community Council thinks the status should be changed to the status of Special Landscape Area (SLA), particularly since the other Councils who include parts of the Pentland Hills within their boundaries have some form of special status for that portion of the Hills.  Borders would be unique in that it would be the only Council without any designation for the Hills.

To assist your reply we have compiled a few headings on which we would like to hear your comments, these can be found here.  You are not limited to these headings, you can respond to any other part of the consultation document that you care to discuss.

The Landscape review can be downloaded here and the Draft Local Landscape Designation report here (please note, this is a large 7.5Mb file so will take some time to download). 

Please send Graham Tulloch or any other member of the Community Council any comments you may have.