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An influential group of MPs will today demand a “fairer deal” for people in Dumfries and Galloway and the Scottish Borders.
Westminster’s Scottish affairs committee has launched a probe into the struggling economy of the borderlands because they argue southern Scotland has been “consistently overlooked and thus inadequately served by successive governments.”
Committee chairman Ian Davidson MP said: “Our initial visits to the borderlands, with what we knew already, told us that people in the south of Scotland are not getting as good a deal as they should.
“Centralisation into Edinburgh undermines the ability of local people to control their own lives and the lack of any development support similar to that provided in the north of Scotland limits social and economic regeneration opportunities.”
Mr Davidson said the borderl areas suffer from higher levels of unemployment and underemployment, lower than average wages, higher transport costs, poorer infrastructure and lower levels of enterprise and economic development than other parts of Scotland.
The Our Borders — Our Future consultation is intended to parallel a successful initiative taken by Scotland’s three islands councils to jointly tackle economic problems.
