North Berwick traffic order sent back to drawing board
Plans to introduce parking charges in the first of East Lothian’s six towns are being sent back to the drawing board after sparking hundreds of objections.
The proposals for North Berwick are the first to be put out to public consultation under a Traffic Regulation Order by East Lothian Council.
However a report to councillors next week will ask for permission to withdraw the order and start again after officers blamed the high number of objections on a “misinterpretation of the key themes” by the public.
It says the council received 659 responses to the traffic order, which would allow the introduction of parking restrictions, permit zones and on-street and off-street charges.
The report said: “A sample of 140 pieces of written correspondence produced 443 individual points of objection and concern covering 73 different themes.” The themes ranged from the impact on the High Street to one in 10 objectors saying there were no parking problems and concerns it would encourage motorhome parking.
Officers point to the amount of documents made available as part of the order as causing a problem, saying: “The Order, as published, included 43 supporting documents. The volume of information was large and technically challenging, which drew negative feedback from the public, with some expressdrawal ing the view that the information was incomprehensible.”
And they added: “In most cases, representations were based on personal perspective of how the proposals will impact the individual objector and did not challenge the proposals against the current parking strategy or the manner in which the order was presented or progressed.”
Officers are asking the council to approve the withof the order and instruct them to draw up a new one. They say the experience from North Berwick will help speed up planned orders for other parts of the county.
The officer statement said: “The benefit of publishing new orders allows us to introduce reasonable modifications but also design a template from the lessons learnt after the North Berwick consultation and objection process.”
Some members of the public said that the information was impossible to understand