The public consultation on plans to ensure a major area of change in the county can become a national example of environmentally-friendly and inclusive development, is due to close at the end of this month.
The area includes Blindwells, the former Cockenzie Power Station site and parts of the surrounding area including existing towns and villages.
A visionary document, called ClimatEvolution Vision and Action Plan, is the basis of the consultation, which asks all interested parties for their views on all or part of the strategy – focusing on:
- Access and Movement
- The Water Environment
- Culture, Heritage and Leisure
- Greenspace and Biodiversity
- Strong Communities, Regeneration and Enterprise
It has been drawn up in partnership with East Lothian Council, the Scottish Government, The Lothian Drainage Partnership, SEPA, Scottish Water and Scottish Natural Heritage.
To make it as easy as possible for you to have an overview of the whole proposal, all the information you need is on one page of our website, including a short animation and a longer video presentation (around 40 minutes long) explaining the vision in more detail. You can then click the link to the consultation hub to give us your views.
Direct engagement work has been carried out with interested groups in these communities and we hope to enable some engagement with schools too.
East Lothian Council spokesperson for Environment, Norman Hampshire, said: “I would urge anyone with an interest in this exciting area of development to have a look at our animation and video, then give us their views before 30th September.
“This is a high level strategy for the next 30 years and nothing is set in stone so we really need people to submit their thoughts and ideas and we will take all of these into consideration. This emerging strategy is an overarching one for a wide area and any detailed and ongoing discussions on the future of the Cockenzie Power Station site will take place alongside this.”
Potential projects for the area contained in the vision document include:
- New transport hubs linking rail, road, cycling and walking
- Facilities linked to the transport hubs detailing the history of the area including the Battle of Prestonpans, which may attract tourism
- Outdoor leisure facilities
- Climate resilient planting programme
- Use of underground water, including mine water, to create geothermal energy
The council has also submitted a bid to have the ClimatEvolution area designated as a nationally-important development by the Scottish Government as part of its National Planning Framework 4 guidelines. The bid will be considered in due course by Scottish Ministers.