“Campaign for Borders Rail AGM – Resumé of David Hope-Jones’s presentation
Peter Heubeck, Campaign for Borders Rail’s Technical Adviser, has summarised the presentation given by the guest speakers at our AGM on 25 October.
The third speaker at CBR’s AGM was David Hope-Jones, chief executive of the South of Scotland Destination Alliance, an umbrella body for tourism covering the Scottish Borders and Dumfries and Galloway.
CBR’s Technical Adviser, Peter Heubeck, has provided a precis of David’s presentation:
Growth strategy – SSDA has a 10-year growth strategy, based around the slogan “Scotland starts here”. The aim is to grow visitor economy by £1BN to £1.76BN and increase employment by 6,000 to 20,000 FTE. This growth will come from becoming a year-round destination, becoming a “go to” rather than a “go through” destination and increasing the number of international visitors, (who spend more). Developing the necessary supporting infrastructure is one of the subsidiary workstreams.
Results after two years – 33% growth in value of tourism, (+£250 to over £1BN) and 14% increase in employment, (+1,933 to 15,692).
Since the Borders Railway opened – 106% increase in Scottish Borders tourism economy from £194.24M to £402.16M. Visitor days have increased by 32% from 3.59M to 4.73M, with a similar increase in visitor numbers from 1.79M to 2.32M. Tourism employment has increased from 4,630 to 6,895, (+49%).
The impact of the Center Parcs development – this £350M – £400M investment will create 1,200 permanent year-round jobs, with a combined salary of £30M – £40M. The 700 lodges will be visited by 350,000 people, (Borders population = 117,000). There will be 98% occupancy giving 2M visitor nights, (which is 1.3 times the Borders total for 2023). There will be 196,200 additional day visitors.
The benefits of completing the Borders Railway – it will create a third cross-border railway, which will attract visitors from England and create a sustainable travel option to Center Parcs. It will spread the economic benefits of the existing Borders Railway more widely. It will show that the Borders are “open for business” and will tie-in with “Scotland starts here”.
Political lobbying – the combination of the tenth anniversary, the demonstrable success of the Borders Railway and the 2026 Holyrood elections create a unique opportunity to secure political support for extending the railway. SSDA and CBR are jointly lobbying all political parties as energetically as possible.
For further comment, contact Secretary John Liddle secretary@campaignforbordersrail.org