Friday June 5th 2026
Parking meter on North Berwick high street
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Marie Sharp
A petition calling for plans to introduce parking charges across East Lothian to be put on hold will be considered by councillors next week after receiving nearly 4,400 signatures.
The call for a pause to the local authority’s controversial parking management scheme will be considered just one week after the first scheme in North Berwick town centre got underway.
North Berwick Community Council has already written to the council demanding the town’s scheme is also paused amid claims confusion surrounds how it operates.
Next week, members of the council’s petitions committee will hear calls for proposed schemes in Haddington, Dunbar, Musselburgh and Tranent to be ‘paused’ to allow a ‘holistic, rigorous, and publicly accessible ‘ review of its impact on the towns to be carried out.
At the time of accepting the petition to put before the committee it had 4,390 signatures on it.
The petition argues that while individual reports and consultations have been undertaken for specific locations, there has been no single, comprehensive impact assessment that examines the cumulative social, economic, equality, accessibility, environmental, and democratic impacts of the parking charge plans across all affected town centres.
And it says introducing the charges before carrying out such a review had undermined public confidence and excluded communities from “informed participation in decisions that directly affect their daily lives”.
Council officers in their response to the petition urge the committee to note the concerns but note the comments raised within the petition but “support the parking review to continue to advance and move forward to the formal Traffic regulation Order consultation process which will be presented back to Council for wider consideration in due course”.
They argue that public engagement over future charging schemes was still being considered as they progress.
Councillors received a noisy reception from dozens of objectors who gathered outside Haddington Town Hall as they arrived at a meeting in December last year where they approved the additional parking schemes for the county.
Parking charges began in North Berwick on June 1 and have already sparked concern with confusion over signage.
An East Lothian Council spokesperson said they were working to deal with a few ‘minor snagging issues’ saying: “The vast majority of the signage is correct and, whilst a few minor snagging issues were identified following installation, the signs in question were promptly changed or will be rectified shortly.”
One of the issues appeared to relate to the signs stating restrictions were in place from 8.30am to 4pm Monday to Saturday when parking charges do not start until 10am.
However the council said the signs refer to the length of time people can park in the streets involved which is restricted from 8.30am during the week.
The council spokesperson said: “As is often the case, signage here shows the maximum amount of time that motorists can park during these periods.
“However, charging for on-street parking is only from 10am (with the first 45 minutes being free in some places such as High Street). This is stated on the parking meters and online via RingGo.”
Tweet Share on Facebook
