As revealed in last week's Hawick News, Sainsbury's is planning on opening a new store on the largely derelict Commercial Road site, below, with a possible three other retail units and the promise of creating 250 full and part-time jobs.

Mr Houston said there were many plus points to such developments, but admitted the creation of an Asda and Tesco supermarket at the southern end of Galashiels, has had almost "disastrous" consequences for high street businesses.

And he said a combination of the credit crunch and poor weather have only exacerbated the problems.



He told the Hawick News: "There are benefits and they do bring people into the town, but the problem is getting them from there and into the town centre. It's fine when the weather is good because people will just park their car and walk in, but when it's bad, they'll just go into Tesco or Asda, get what they want, and we don't see them. That's hurting a lot of shops.

"Another huge problem is that we've got Marks and Spencer, Tesco, Asda and Next all in one area. It's pulling people to that side of the town and not encouraging them to go elsewhere. The balance has got to be right or people will just stay in the one place."

Hawick Provost Zandra Elliot has spoken out against the plans by Sainsbury's, believing that such a development would have a negative effect on businesses on the High Street.

But Mr Houston said it was difficult to tell how local businesses in Galashiels had fared since the end of 2006 when Asda opened, closely followed by Tesco.

He added: "The problem with Galashiels is that it has a lot of national companies and we don't know if they are shutting because of national issues or because of the impact of Asda and Tesco. When you look at the empty units there aren't too many local businesses shut, maybe just one or two, although a lot of them are struggling. It doesn't half change your town, whether it's for the best or not is difficult to say."