Tuesday June 9th 2026
Old Gala High School
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Paul Kelly
Cash-strapped Scottish Borders Council is facing “significant additional costs” running into millions of pounds due to the removal of asbestos from three former schools, it was revealed today.
The costs relate to unanticipated works at the old Peebles, Galashiels and Hawick high schools.
The extra funding required emerged at a meeting of Scottish Borders Council’s Executive Committee on Tuesday, June 9.
John Curry, the council’s director of Infrastructure and Environment, said: “For Galashiels I think the figure for asbestos removal is £1.6m and for Peebles it is around the same amount, with £1m alone for the dining hall and assembly hall, and that’s largely down to the nature of the asbestos and how it was encapsulated in the building and the way we needed to remove that and demolish it safely.
“The sum was well above what we had forecast in the capital plan in terms of estimates for asbestos and that’s largely because when you do asbestos removal, and when you’re costing that, you need to go with the information you’ve got.
“You don’t actually get the nature of the asbestos encapsulated in the building until you do a refurbishment and demolition survey, that’s generally quite intrusive and you tend not to do that when buildings are occupied because of the risks of asbestos contamination.”
Councillor Julie Pirone, who had requested clarification on asbestos costs, asked: “Are there other buildings which you are looking at that contain asbestos and have you factored that in as you are going forward?”
Mr Curry responded: “We obviously have a lot of buildings across our estate that have asbestos because they were easier to build.
“Asbestos stopped being used in the late 90s, but there were obviously buildings built before that so we do have asbestos management logs that we check and register, particularly as we go through new projects and try and ascertain the extent of works.
“For Peebles and Gala I think we have exhausted all the works and know the extent of the costs but Hawick High School still has some risks around it, we had some asbestos challenges in the first phase of demolition.”
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