East Lothian Council gets red card over parking meter plans for Haddington town centre

More than 100 people attended a community meeting on Thursday to share their views on proposals to introduce meters in Haddington as part of a county wide move by the local authority to manage parking in towns.

The audience were handed green and red cards to hold up after questions were answered to show their support or rejections of the answers given. And Provost John McMillan, who made the case for the council’s proposals found himself faced with a sea of red cards in response to his comments during the meeting.

It was claimed the charges would drive away customers from the town centre and penalise the sick.

People attending public meeting on parking charge proposals in Haddington give council the red card. | LDR

Former Housing Minister Paul McLennan MSP, who recently stepped down from the post to spend more time with his East Lothian constituents, told the meeting he could not support the parking charges plan for the town.

He said the council had provided no evidence of the impact they would have on local shops and businesses and no costing for introducing the new system.

He said: “I can’t support the current proposals when no impact assessment has been carried out and we don’t know how much it is going to cost. We do not know how it will impact our high streets and trade.”

The meeting heard from Garry Clark from the Federation of Small Businesses, who said its East Lothian members had raised concerns that the charges would drive away customers and were not fair.

He pointed to similar schemes which had been introduced in Angus and Inverurie which he said had damaged town centres with councils having to go back to the drawing board.

Mr Clark said: “When you have retail parks on the edge of town with free parking and online shopping where people aren’t having to park anywhere, it is unfair to charge customers who want to go into the town centre to shop.”

Provost McMillan, who lives in Haddington and is the council administration’s economic spokesperson, insisted the proposals, which have been included in a parking management scheme first put forward by the Labour administration in 2018, aimed to keep cars moving in the town centre with funds raised going back into the roads.

However he drew criticism from members of the public who questioned why there was a free car park for East Lothian Council staff at the local authority’s Haddington town centre headquarters.

One resident asked: “Whey are council staff able to park for free while everyone else has to pay?”

Councillor McMillan also drew gasps from some members of the audience when he told them that it has, in his opinion, become “inbred that you can park anywhere you want in Haddington”.

Haddington and District Community Council, who organised the meeting in the town’s Knox Academy, described a council survey carried out as part of the public consultation into the proposals as ‘bias’ saying it carried out its own questionnaire which received hundreds of responses for the town’s residents, visitors and traders.

They said when asked if there were parking problems in Haddington over 85 per cent said no with the number who were against the introduction of meters rising to the high nineties.

East Lothian MSP and former Scottish Housing Minister Paul McLennan addresses meeting about introduce parking charges in Haddington town centre. | LDR

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Mr McMillan stressed that the consultation was ongoing and the views of people in the town would be considered.

He told the meeting: “I am here to listen, I am here to answer questions and I am here to collaborate with you.”

However his responses to questions about the staff car park in the town centre and explanations about trying to make people less dependent on cars to travel into the town saw red cards raised in response almost unanimously by the audience.

The council proposes changing the town centre parking in Haddington, which currently offers 90 minutes before drivers have to move on, to 30 minutes free and then charges being introduced.

However people at the meeting questioned whether it was possible for people, who travel into the town from outlying rural communities, to come into town and carry out appointments in the new 30 minute limit.

East Lothian MSP Craig Hoy who has been a vocal opponent of the council’s ongoing plans to introduce parking charges across the county, said it would mean charging the sick.

He said: “I have my constituency office in Haddington town centre and know how long a chat with a constituent who comes in to see me can take.

“What happens when they come in for GP appointments or have to collect prescriptions? This can’t be done in 30 minutes so we are charging people who are sick to come and get help.”