INTRODUCTION

Chapter One explores the origins of town and country planning in the UK and describes how planning was put into practice in the Scottish Borders in the 1940s and 1950s. Planning committees were established in the 1940s and were advised by the county clerk assisted by the county surveyor or county architect supported by technical staff. In the 1950s, most staff in Scottish county planning departments was unqualified in planning, or architects who might have taken an addi-tional course in ‘Town Planning’. Sir Frank Mears was responsible for Scotland's first Town Planning course, introduced at the Edinburgh College of Art in 1932. Architecture students successfully completing the one-year course were awarded the Diploma in Town Planning and exempt from the final examinations of the Town Planning Institute (TPI). It would be 1948 before a separate School of Town Planning was established at the College of Art, awarding diplomas in town planning similar to the schools of town planning in the universities of Liverpool, London, Manchester and Durham.

There were only eighteen qualified town planners working in Scotland at this time, most of whom were in the Department of Health for Scotland (DHS). Local government had been slow to appoint ‘Planners’ to head their new Planning Departments; instead, entrusting the task to their road surveyors or architect's departments. John Somerville (Jack) Baillie, appointed County Planning Officer of Midlothian County Council in 1948 and Frank Tindall, appointed County Planning Officer of neighbouring East Lothian County Council in 1950, would be two of the first fully qualified county planning officers in Scotland. John C. Hall, and subsequently his son John B. Hall, trading as J & J Hall, Architects of Galashiels, would act as county planning officer for Selkirk County Council (SCC) providing planning advice to the county clerk. Peebles County Council (PCC) would be advised by Jack Baillie and Assistant County Planning Officer, Charles Ross (Charlie) Mackenzie, of Midlothian County Planning Department. In Roxburghshire the county architect provided advice to the county clerk, and in Berwickshire the county surveyor was appointed county planning officer. It would be the late 1960s before Roxburgh and Berwickshire County Councils appointed qualified county planning officers.