Sir, I would like to appeal to Peeblesshire News readers to join the thousands who have signed the petition asking Scottish Borders Council to overturn its decision to spend £6 million of our money and £2.5 million of Scottish Government money (also our money) - that is a total of £8.5m - on a new building at Tweedbank to house the Great Tapestry of Scotland. This petition will be closed on February 23 so sign now please on paper at a shop, café or pub in your town or village or online at Change.org by putting – Scottish Borders Tapestry petition – in the Google search.

The SBC Full Council agreed to the 2015/16 spending budget last Thursday where they have to make savings of more than £8m but they agree to spend £220,000 on the new building with £5.8m in 2016/17. Does this make sense to you? Also the Chief Financial Officer, David Robertson, cautioned: “There is still a significant amount of work that is still to be undertaken to get the project fully defined, the external funding secured and the construction work tendered.” This normally indicates that costs will rise.

The visitor numbers for Abbotsford in 2014 were 40,000 but they are projecting 46,816 paid visits to the Tapestry in Year Three when they would only make a return of three per cent - not enough to provide for contingency and development funds.

We need enough signatures to make the Councillors sit up and listen to our democratic concerns about this decision. It will do no harm for you to also question your local Councillors about their reasons for supporting this decision.

I am, etc.

Brian McCrow Cardrona Way Cardrona