Local man Stuart Crawford has been selected to contest the Haddington & Lammermuir ward for the Scottish Liberal Democrats in next years Council elections

Mr Crawford has been active in local politics for many years and was instrumental in curtailing the development of Briery Bank to acceptable limits in the early 2000s. Recently he met with the police Area Commander to discuss anti-social behaviour in the ward and has been outspoken over Haddington's still-to-be-resolved traffic and parking problems. He has also expressed concerns over the proliferation of new housing without the appropriate level of investment in amenities and infrastructure.

As the leaves turn brown and begin to tumble to the ground at the end of our Indian summer, a new pestilence descends upon us at the same time. The blight of the petrol-drive leaf blower, arguably the most useless piece of machinery invented by man, is upon us again. Blowing the leaves into a pile, noisily, during the day, and letting the wind then redistribute them again overnight, is surely one of modern society's most pointless pastimes.

It is probably too much to ask that everyone abandons their blowers and return to the good old days of rake and bin, but there are other solutions. Responsible landowners have already traded in their petrol machines for the much more benign electric equivalents, thereby not only reducing noise pollution but also avoiding pumping out noxious fumes into the environment.

I note that East Lothian Council regularly deploys its fleet of noisy, petrol-engined blowers in its efforts to maintain our green spaces across the county. Time for it to convert to electric models and set the example in environmental responsibility?

Come the Council elections next year it will be three years since I campaigned during the Council by-election in May 2019 on the vexed problem of traffic circulation and parking in Haddington.

And what has happened in the intervening years and months? Nothing.

There have been proposals and consultations but the situation remains the same. In fact it's worse because of the new housing which has boosted the numbers of cars in the streets.

Sir,

Like many of your East Lothian readers, I reckon, my existing suspicions
were confirmed by your report that the number of new homes being registered
in the Garden County is considerably higher than the UK constituency
average (Courier, 2.9.21), currently by about two and a half times.

It is quite clear that the provision of infrastructure and services has
not matched this exponential rise in housebuilding in the county, as
implied by Messrs MacAskill and McLennan in your report. I think this
aspect needs much greater emphasis. It is already proving problematic in terms
of new residents seeking to register with GP surgeries, for example, and
the increased traffic on county roads is quite noticeable, to say
nothing of the ever lengthening traffic queues on the streets of Haddington.

Our main through route, the A1, is already busier than ever, and who
knows what it will be like when the new town at Blindwells comes on
stream. You only have to look at the inability of the Edinburgh City
Bypass to cope with traffic at peak times to see what the future might
hold for us in East Lothian.

I'm sure we all hope that the county will continue to be an attractive
place to live, but without proper planning and resourcing in support of
the myriad new housing developments this may prove to be a forlorn hope.
The Council planning committee and officials need to take heed and up
their respective games here.

Yours faithfully,