The council has re-affirmed its backing for the creative business sector, after concerns over the future of the Creative Arts Business Network (CABN).
At a meeting of the economic development group last week members agreed to continue to support the sector through Business Gateway and continued funding of the CABN project for 2014, while seeking medium and long term funding sources for the project.
CABN supports individuals and organisations working in visual arts, craft, literature, film, music and performing arts.
Support for the wider creative sector has come through Business Gateway and the ‘Creative Clusters’ project.
The value of the creative sector in the Borders is estimated to be £21m, with some 375 businesses employing over 700 people.
The council have agreed to put £14,000 into the CABN project, which matches the first year of Creative Scotland funding totalling £44,000.
Councillor Vicky Davidson said: “It was very tricky not knowing how CABN was going to be funded and it caused a lot of upset, so it is great that Creative Scotland have come up with an offer, but we have only managed to match the first year of the offer, so there must be a question mark for Creative Scotland that we have not managed to fully match it, and some concern from CABN that it is only fully funded for a year.”
She added: “It has proven to be a very useful organisantion and has been praised by anyone who has had contact with it.”
Councillor Davidson said that as well as encouraging networking within the sector, bigger Borders businesses need to be encouraged to look within the region when they are requiring creative services, such as website design and marketing.
She added that the wider impact of a strong creative sector in the Borders was hard to measure, but it was an important factor in the area’s tourism offer alone.
Graham Bell, chairman of the Borders branch of the Federation of Small Businesses added that such firms helped buld up the ‘Borders brand’.