Local MP John Lamont has criticised the inflexibility of the rules surrounding who can rent office space at the £5.2m Galashiels Interchange building.
It has been revealed that despite being around 80% empty, the Council are being forced to turn away prospective tenants due to stipulations put in place by the Scottish Government and the European funding which partially paid for the building.
Last month, John Lamont MP visited and offered to rent space in Waverley Chambers as a second constituency office. However, it was then discovered that because the building was partially funded by EU money, a condition of this funding meant the majority of the space had to be occupied by small or medium sized businesses (SMEs).
Despite the Chambers being largely unoccupied, this stipulation prevents any further office space being offered to organisations which don’t meet these conditions, meaning John Lamont’s offer to rent an office had to be turned down.
John even suggested to take the empty space under the condition that if a qualifying business was later found, he would vacate it. This compromise was rejected by the Scottish Government, who administer the European Fund involved.
Scottish Borders Council invested £3.4m into the building, with the rest of the money coming from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). As a result of this investment, the Council is paying back £200k a year over 30 years.
Waverley Chambers consists of very high quality office space and shared accommodation, totalling over 500m2. There is currently more than 400m2 lying empty, over two years after the building was opened.
John Lamont has expressed his frustration with the fact that this tax-payer funded office space is being allowed to lie empty despite there being willing tenants and is urging the Scottish Government, as the administrator of this fund, to be more flexible.
John Lamont MP, said: “In order to make is as easy as possible for constituents to access their local MP, I was keen to find an office in Galashiels in addition to my one in Hawick.
“The office space at Waverley Chambers is a fantastic facility with excellent transport links. The question is how many others who would be interested in renting some office space, are being turned away because they do not meet these conditions.
“I even offered to vacate the office if a suitable SME was found, which seemed like a reasonable compromise. I was therefore disappointed that the Council were told by the Scottish Government that there was no possibility of being flexible.
“It appears that the Scottish Government would prefer for this space to remain empty rather than for the taxpayer to get some return on their investment. Meanwhile, Scottish Borders Council are having to pay back their investment in the largely empty building and at the same time turn away prospective tenants.
“There are already too many empty properties in Galashiels and we’re not going to turn this around by making it harder for people to rent space. I hope that common sense will prevail and the Council are allowed some degree of flexibility.”
John added: “Council officials have gone out of their way to find a way around this but the Scottish Government has refused to budge.”
Galashiels Councillor Euan Jardine said: “I was very disappointed to hear that willing tenants are being turned away from the Interchange because of a lack of flexibility from the Scottish Government.
"The result of this is that property continues to remain empty and access to an elected member of Parliament is being denied for one of the largest populated areas of the constituency.
“As one of the local councillors in Galashiels, I feel this is a strong message from Holyrood that they would rather tie themselves up in red tape than let elected representatives get to work on behalf of the people of Galashiels.”