IN EAST Lothian, we are part of communities which are growing and changing in front of our eyes, with new housing, schools, amenities and indeed whole new estates, villages and towns appearing over the last year where once there were just fields.

Last Friday, I had the opportunity to see this change for myself with a site visit to the new development at Blindwells with Jonathan Graham from Hargreaves Land.

Blindwells is a clear example of a new community and town which will grow and take shape over the next decade as shops, schools and recreation facilities are built and provided, as well as a town centre, and in due course this will all hopefully feel and behave as a tight knit community of residents and businesses.

We as the police hope to play our part in policing that community and making it as safe and attractive as possible, and will be engaging further with Hargreaves as the site develops.

Many of you will have been aware that we have been running a public consultation on ideas to close stations at North Berwick, Dunbar and Prestonpans which we no longer have use for. This closed on Friday last week and my thanks to those of you who contributed to this.

I have further meetings with community council leaders in Dunbar and North Berwick this week but want to make clear again that there will be no change to the numbers of police officers providing a service to local communities in these towns as a result of the proposed closures.

One of the themes which has arisen from the consultation are questions around where our response teams are currently based and where help comes from when you phone 999. I would like to clarify that there are always 24/7 response teams based at Musselburgh and Haddington who respond to calls all over the county and back up the community officers on many of the issues which are reported to us.

Going forward, we are looking at renovating both response hub stations in Musselburgh and Haddington, which I’m sure will come as welcome news to many of you, including the officers who have had to put up with rather shabby and dated facilities over the last few years.

As a result of the consultations, my community officers are working hard to integrate themselves into more community-based spaces based on your feedback, which will only make us more accessible and available, so I would urge you to feed back through your local community councils on where, when and how you would like to have access to community police officers.