A BOOMING Borders holiday park has won approval to expand to meet unprecedented demand – adding 30 new full and part-time staff to its workforce in the process.

Lilliardsedge Holiday Park and Golf Course at Oxnam, near Jedburgh, is a highly successful tourist attraction.

The park has been full since UK travel restrictions were lifted on April 26, 2021, with visitors including a significant number of holidaymakers camping in its south field.

That has brought problems in catering for such a large population of visitors that includes locals and golfers who wish to eat out in the existing restaurant.

Now an application has been rubber-stamped by Scottish Borders Council to build a temporary steel-framed marquee to stage events for up to 102 people and for an additional eight parking spaces at the venue.

A report submitted with the application, from Edinburgh-based Alan Couper Consulting, says: “The existing restaurant and bar employ 25 permanent full-time staff which increases during the peak holiday season by five temporary staff.

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“The proposed temporary marquee would increase staff numbers by five or six full-time permanent staff and between 20 to 25 temporary staff, including waiters, bar staff, kitchen porters.

“The company is a major local employer and the proposed marquee, albeit temporary, would provide further local employment as well as contributing significantly to the local economy through increased expenditure by the company with local food suppliers.”

In his report supporting the application, Carlos Clarke, the council’s lead planning officer, says: “This development will not risk light or privacy loss and a noise impact assessment was submitted and endorsed.

“The marquee, and the structures associated with it, are acceptable in this context because they would be temporary – five years is proposed, and because of the benefit of screening from existing trees and planting alongside the A68.

“It is certainly not ideal that the marquee is white, but the temporary nature and the screening in this particular case are sufficient mitigation.”