There are 35 famous people to choose from in STV’s The Greatest Scot, selected by experts and the public.

But the sheriff and novelist is not one of them.

Selkirk historian Walter Elliot said: ”Next to Burns Sir Walter Scott is probably the best known Scot. He was the inventor of the novel and even during his lifetime there was a tourist trail coming to Abbotsford to visit him. All the famous folk used to come to visit Scott.

It’s totally ridiculous that he is not on the list.”

And Mr Elliot believes the sparsity of STV in the Borders would have had an impact on the ‘peoples choice’ selection.

“I have done programmes for STV and never got to see them,” he added.

Mr Elliot also stated that if Borderers had been asked to nominate five top Scots that Sir Walter Scott’s name would have appeared.

“If you look at his influence in Scotland, quite a lot of Scottish stories originate from Scott - the likes of Rob Roy: he has an influence even yet.”

SNP MSP Christine Grahame is also concerned that viewers in the Borders are missing out on the chance to vote on the STV programme.

And she is continuing to press for STV to extend its television coverage into the region following discussions with interested local business people and the Minister for Culture.

She said: “There are 35 people to vote for but none of these are Borderers and it is particularly disappointing to note that Sir Walter Scott is not among those shortlisted. I do wonder whether this has anything to do with the fact that programme is not being shown in our region.”

An STV spokesperson commented the shortlist of 30 nominees was selected by “an esteemed panel of judges, using carefully considered criteria.”

And they said it was the public who had chosen the remaining five, putting forward their selections in September.

The panel selecting the 30 were historian Tom Devine, former footballer Pat Nevin, Sir Menzies Campbell MP, Daily Record editor Bruce Waddell, adventurer Louise Scott, business woman Hamira Khan, and Edinburgh Festival director Jonathan Mills.

And the five people the public chose are musicians Alex Harvey and Annie Lennox, actors David Tennant and Sean Connery and Boy’s Brigade founder William Alexander Smith.

Voting online or by phone closes on Sunday and the winner will be announced on St Andrews Day.