ROAD services delivered by Scottish Borders Council – including winter gritting – could be taken over by a new organisation covering Edinburgh, the Lothians and Fife, councillors were told.

“How am I going to tell my constituents in Hawick that their road won’t be cleared of snow because Dalkeith has priority?” asked Councillor David Paterson at a meeting of SBC’s environment and infrastructure committee.

Members had heard a presentation from Andrew Drummond-Hunt, director of commercial services, on the implications of the proposal from the Scottish Government’s Improvement Service (IS) for the creation of an Edinburgh, Lothian, Borders and Fife (ELBF) limited liability partnership (LLP). Mr Drummond-Hunt admitted that SBC and the five other ELBF councils already had many services in common, including road repairs, traffic light maintenance, surface treatment, flood risk management and rock salt gritting.

And he stressed that collaboration already existed between the six local authorities with officers meeting informally to share information and experiences.

Advantages for councils of being part of – and jointly owning – an LLP which will formalize existing arrangements would include being able to award each other work and pursue joint procurements.

But Mr Drummond-Hunt cautioned that SBC was already a special case in that its successful trading division, SB Contracts, which carries out the bulk of road repairs in the region and provides plant for winter maintenance, was the only arms length organisation of its kind in the ELBF area.

Last year, SB Contracts, which employs 60 staff, had a turnover of over £11million and recorded a surplus of £584,000 which went into council coffers to support a range of services, including social work and education.

That income is expected to be boosted as a result of SB Contracts signing a major sub-contractual deal this year with Amey for the maintenance of trunk roads.

Mr Drummond Hunt said there was a risk to both the trading division and the council’s winter maintenance service if there was the “disaggregation” explicit in the ELBF proposal. It would also threaten valuable income generation for wider SBC services. He suggested that to avoid that scenario an option would be for SB Contracts to form its own LLP and thus be “better placed to exploit wider contracting opportunities”.

Councillor Ron Smith noted Mr Paterson’s misgivings that road services in the region could suffer in a large new organisation and added: “We need to protect these services, but ultimately this is a political issue because the Scottish Government has an agenda for centralisation.

“However, we need much more information about how this will impact on the council and SB Con tracts before we can come to a definitive view,” Mr Drummond-Hunt agreed to prepare a report on the full implications of the ELBF proposal for a meeting of SBC executive in the new year.

A council spokesperson said: “The discussions at a regional level regarding an ELBT LLP are still at a very early stage and any decision will need to be taken by the full council.” “Ensuring the continuation of high quality local services will be of paramount importance during consideration of the various options which may be available to the council.”