Charges bid for TweedLove bike festival in Peebles

Tweed Green has hosted TweedLove over the last decade, with more than one thousand cyclists taking part every September.

The green is town Common Good land but currently no charge is levied from event organisers, Peebles-based Hillside Outside Ltd, for its use.

At a meeting of Peebles Common Good Sub-Committee on Wednesday, November 23, it was suggested that profits from any monies raised could be ploughed back into good causes within the town.

However, there was a call for consistency on the charges raised from all commercial operators using Common Good land across the Borders – before any decision was taken.

Peebles Community Council’s Peter Maudsley said: “The one we are most concerned about is Tweed Green and the fact that there is quite an amount of activity, obviously with the biking from Hillside Outside, which to the best of our knowledge has never been charged for the use of the particular area.

“The subject of Tweed Green and the subject of charging has never been raised. Hillside Outside are a commercial operation with significant assets and must have a fair turnover coming in. It has been voiced that because of the amount of revenue coming into the town it’s a good idea to not charge for that. We don’t agree with that. We don’t know the level of revenue being brought into the town because there has never been an assessment.

“If an assessment is needed I think it should be by SBC. We have never had any of the traders come to us and say they do see an increase in income, whereas we do have traders coming to us saying they have never seen an increase in income.

“There are other issues that impinge on this as well, such as the activity levels down there and the disposal of waste, just the other day someone did suggest that maybe this sort of activity might be better moved out to the showground at Nether Horsburgh.”

Tweeddale East ward’s Councillor Julie Pirone added: “The TweedLove festival has grown in size and I wouldn’t want to stop it happening because we can see there is an economic impact. But I have seen the feedback from traders because it has grown and there is a licensed bar at the marquee, there are licensed food and venues. I was quite surprised that we didn’t charge for that use at Tweed Green and while TweedLove does have an operations licence it pays for we could be making money from that Common Good land that we could use in Peebles and further afield in Peebleshire.

“My view is that if it is a commercial operation and it is so large that we should be getting some revenue from it.”

Councillor Marshal Douglas, for the Tweeddale East ward, called for consistency on charging across the Borders

He said: “I can see why people would think of the Tweed Green situation because there is obviously a very large public event that is run for private profit. On the other hand should we really be discussing something which impacts on an individual user in open business, should that not be a private matter when we discuss individual businesses?”

Members agreed that officers look into a report on Common Good land charging issues being brought before Scottish Borders Council.