TWEEDDALE East councillor Gavin Logan has resigned as chairman of Scottish Borders Council’s watchdog scrutiny committee.

His departure was confirmed at the full meeting of the council in Newtown yesterday.

The 72-year-old Conservative has been at the helm since the nine-member committee - charged to monitor and challenge the decisions of SBC’s powerful executive - was revived two years ago.

Mr Logan, who will not seek re-election next May, was one of three members of the Tory opposition group on the committee. The other six are drawn from the SNP/Lib Dem/Independent ruling administration.

“I have been considering my position for some time,” Councillor Logan told the Peeblesshire News.

He said he had delayed his resignation until a small working group of councillors appointed by his committee had completed a probe into the council’s decision to commit £3.5m in capital spending to a site in Tweedbank to host the Great Tapestry of Scotland.

That report, published last month, concluded that elected members had been given “sufficient information” to inform the Tweedbank decision.

“At a scrutiny meeting in October last year when six councillors attended, I supported a request from a community council for the tapestry decision to be reviewed given the huge level of public interest,” recalled Mr Logan.

“However I had to use my casting vote as the three administration members who attended, all of whom had supported the tapestry going to Tweedbank, wanted no further action.

“The following month, in the interests of balance, I called for that investigating working group to have six members, but again the administration members of the committee combined to ensure only four councillors would be on the group and that three of these were from the administration.”

Mr Logan also cited his failed attempt, at a full council meeting in December last year, to have the scrutiny membership boosted by three non-elected members to more accurately represent the Borders electorate.

“I was shot down in flames by members of the administration and accused of bad judgment,” said Mr Logan. “I must admit the treatment I received that day has continued to rankle.

“I was very disappointed at the attempt to thwart the tapestry review, but the blocking of my wish to democratise the committee really was the final straw.”