SCOTTISH Borders Council is poised to take back control of some services currently operated by a cash-strapped charitable trust on its behalf.

A review was recently launched on the future of Live Borders, the body overseeing swimming pools, leisure centres, libraries, cultural venues and museums.

Venues operated include the Great Tapestry of Scotland in Galashiels and the Jim Clark Museum in Duns.

The review was undertaken after Live Borders experienced unprecedented challenges over the past five years, including the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent slow recovery, massively increased utility costs and changes in customer usage trends.

It led to the organisation requiring a series of financial bail-outs from the council between 2022/23 and 2024/25.

The local authority has supported Live Borders financially throughout, including continuing to pay the full management fee when services were closed through the pandemic and staff were furloughed.

It has also provided an additional £2.5m of funding over and above the management fee and also removed planned savings from budget plans.

There were four options on the table – one of which was to return the operation of all the services back under the control of the council.

But when members of the full council meet on Thursday (June 27) they will be recommended to only take back under control its active schools and sports development programmes at present.

The full council is not being advised to take back full control as the loss of rates relief on its sports and leisure facilities alone would be about £780,000.

Instead, it will be told that there would be merit in taking back the active schools and sports development services which have no buildings associated with them.

However, another report is to be presented to full council in September to provide a “further appraisal of the options for the future delivery of the cultural and community services either within the trust, the council or a combination of both”.

The current trust was established in 2003 as the Borders Sports and Leisure Trust with services expanded over the years.