Timber plan for land near Walter Scott's old home

The land in the Borders will mainly be used for timber production

A 20-year plan is being drawn up for the management of a hillside near a former home of Sir Walter Scott.

The writer lived at Ashiestiel, near Walkerburn, in the Borders before moving to Abbotsford House.

The land was recently acquired by Forestry and Land Scotland and it is now drawing up plans for its future.

It has put the relevant documents on its website outlining how it would mainly be used for sustainable timber production.

A planned community drop-in event about the proposals cannot be held due to the coronavirus outbreak.

FLS intends to establish the Tweed Valley site with a mixture of conifer and broadleaf species.

'Interesting habitats'

It said that in doing so it could meet a range of objectives from priority habitat retention and enhancement to productive forestry.

Tom Harvey, planning forester with the local FLS team, said: "Ashiestiel has a mixture of interesting priority habitats that we intend to manage as open land and where appropriate enhance existing broadleaf woodland with further native broadleaf species.

"This will provide an important biodiverse network of habitats in the future.

"The site lends itself to contributing to the productivity of its neighbouring FLS block Elibank with good access from an existing forest road network."

He said they would like as much public input as possible into the plans.