About

Welcome to Resilient Borders. This is a project about you helping to design a sustainable future for Galashiels and the Central Borders. We’re looking far ahead and asking some quite fundamental questions about how the town can transform itself to provide high levels of social support, well paying skilled jobs, great new tourism opportunities and of course a low carbon future.

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Why Galashiels?

Many of the elements are already in place, beautiful countryside, a University on the doorstep, a fine textile tradition and of course the re-opened Borders Railway. All told, Galashiels should be on the cusp of a fulfilling future and we think that the resources the town has means you should aim high and be ambitious.

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How?

The Resilient Borders project gives you building blocks to construct some realisable visions. Graduate design students from the University of Edinburgh have worked here for two years, looking with a fresh pair of eyes on the resources and opportunities the Central Borders has to offer.

Our project is to couple our students’ work with your aspirations living and working in and around Galashiels for a sustainable and resilient future. Students’ projects are often speculative, sometimes challenging but always fresh in their thinking. We think that combining this with local knowledge, nous and ambition, a collaborative vision of a resilient Central Borders is achievable.

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Useful?

This project is important because it can lift expectations of what a sustainable town is. Sustainable settlements are about prosperous and cohesive communities as much as recycling and saving energy. Resilient Borders can provide a vision to inform planning and development in the short as well as the long term that gives you all a strong and ambitious blueprint for sustainable development.