Planning speeds up for major schemes in Scottish Borders
Scottish Borders Council has seen the average time taken to handle major planning applications cut by more than 60% over two years.
In 2013/14 it took 73.3 weeks to decide on projects like wind farms or large-scale housing developments.
Its latest annual report showed that was reduced to 27.6 weeks in 2015/16.
Councillor Ron Smith said it had taken a "great deal of work" to bring down the timescales but added that further improvements were planned.