INTRODUCTION

Under the 1947 Act it was the duty of every planning authority to carry out a survey of their area and, within three years of 1 July 1948, the date the Act came into force, prepare a development plan based on the survey and submit it for the approval of the SoS. Planning authorities were also under an obligation to review their development plans at five-yearly intervals and could put forward amendments for approval by the SoS at any time. The Midlothian County Development Plan, which included the Gala Water valley north of Bowland incorporating the villages of Stow, Fountainhall and Heriot, an area that would be included in the Borders Region in 1975, was submitted to the SoS in 1952, the first to be produced in Scotland, and approved in May 1955. The Selkirk County Development Plan was approved by the SoS in April 1955 and the Peeblesshire County Development Plan in December 1955 but it would be February 1965 before the county development plans for Berwickshire and Roxburghshire received his approval. Other than the Quinquennial Review of the Selkirk County Development Plan, approved in January 1968, which excluded Galashiels Burgh, there would be no other attempts to review the approved development plans; they would be modified as required by formal amendment to enable major developments not in accordance with the approved development plan to take place.

The 1947 Act stipulated that the development plan should indicate the manner in which the authority proposed that land in their area should be used and the stages by which any development should be carried out. Development plans had to include a survey report, a written statement summarising the authority's proposals, and a basic map defining the sites of proposed roads, public buildings and so on and allocating or ‘zoning’ areas of land for particular uses such as residential development, industry and open space. Regulations stipulated a wide range of details, from the contents of the survey report to the number and type of accompanying plans and the colours to be used to depict the different land uses.