Agenda item

Consider report by Principal Solicitor. (Copy attached.)

There had been circulated copies of a report by the Principal Solicitor seeking approval of the draft Common Good Registers for the former Burgh of Galashiels and advising on the next steps in the process for consultation and publication under the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015. The report explained that under the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 the Council was required to establish and maintain a register of property which was held by the authority as part of the Common Good (“a Common Good Register”). Before establishing a Common Good Register, the Act required the Council to publish a list of property that it proposed to include in the Register and consult the public on this list.  Council approved the process for compliance with the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 on 31 January 2019, and since that date work had been ongoing in consolidating all information held in respect of heritable and moveable Common Good assets. From the work carried out, a draft list of assets considered to be a complete list of heritable and moveable assets held by the Galashiels Common Good had been prepared, and was appended to the report.  Mrs MacLeod advised that although the consultation would commence before Christmas the 12 week period would be counted from January and the consultation would be widely publicised. Mrs Macleod expected that the focus would primarily be on art and artefacts but welcomed the wider community to have an input into the consultation regardless of the asset. With regard to Common Good owned land, Mrs Macleod advised that two areas of land at Netherdale and Church Street had been removed from the register due to ownership having passed from the Common Good several decades earlier. In response to a question on art and furniture located in the Burgh Chambers, Mrs Macleod advised that each item would be considered on an individual basis and researched fully to ascertain ownership.

DECISION

AGREED to:-

(a)          approve the contents of the draft list of heritable and moveable property assets held by the Council within the former Burgh of Galashiels;

(b)          approve the publishing of the draft list to be made available for public consultation for a period of at least twelve weeks;

(c)          note that following the period of consultation all comments would be brought to the Common Good Fund Sub-Committee for their consideration; and

(d)          note that the Section 95 Officer would amend the Common Good accounts to include the additional asset identified as Common Good.