The recent announcement that East Lothian Council (ELC) will ban campervans and caravans from ELC coastal car parks is very welcome.

The justifications for doing so were presented by Councillor John McMillan: “While it is no surprise that people are attracted to our beautiful beaches and want to stay close by, these are wild spaces, and the majority do not have the infrastructure or facilities of a formal campsite to support overnight visitors.

The arrangements have been brought in to balance the desire for people to visit coastal sites with our need to conserve these special areas for everyone, including the species that call them home.”

These concerns very much reflect the views of the people of East Lothian.

They apply to all East Lothian’s car parks along the coast, not just those designated as ‘coastal car parks’. In fact, the car parks not included in the ban have even fewer facilities for camping than those which are.

The campervan issue is further complicated by the new traffic regulation order (TRO) proposals for North Berwick, which add additional car parks to the campervan ban but leave out just two car parks sitting along a dead end, down what is effectively a very busy single-track road. These car parks have no facilities whatsoever.

For reasons perhaps best known to ELC road services, the sewage works and Haugh Road car parks in North Berwick now seem to have a different status to the close-by Castle Hill car park and, via the proposed TROs, are being deliberately turned into unregulated campsites. Historically, this was never the case.

The growing problem has been regularly raised with road services over decades, who respond by saying nothing can be done.

The unavoidable consequence of the ELC ruling and proposed TRO will be to direct campervans and caravans to the least suitable car parks in all of North Berwick.

The serious problems resulting from the current misuse of these car parks is very well documented elsewhere but include human waste, fires, gridlocks involving emergency vehicles, sewage lorry turning issues, etc. Are Scottish Water aware of the proposed changes? A bad situation will be made very much worse.

This cannot be right. What applies to ‘ELC coastal car parks’ should surely apply to all the public car parks along the East Lothian coast. The campervans will clearly gravitate to the last public sites available.

All the car parks were built so that residents and visitors could park their cars for a few hours to visit the beach. Typically, they also visit the town and its cafés and shops, compared to campervans which arrive fully equipped and self-sufficient. These car parks are not and never have been campsites and do not have the appropriate facilities. Campsites which do have facilities can be found elsewhere in East Lothian.

Please, East Lothian Council, do all that you can to prevent road services creating unregulated campsites with no facilities on the seafront on what have always been well-used car parks for residents and visitors.

John Lapish

Tantallon Terrace

North Berwick