Chief Executive, Angela Leitch

Welcome to January 2019 and a Happy New Year to all East Lothian Council employees. 

We left 2018 as the fastest growing council area in Scotland and the New Year will see the council continue to provide quality services to our local residents, businesses and visitors.

The council budget will be set at a special meeting in February but we already know that we will face some financial challenges. The public budget consultation will provide us with some indications of the key priorities for local residents and will help guide some of our service delivery. Every employee can also be actively involved. If you have ideas that can further improve your service area, reduce costs and increase customer satisfaction levels then please share with your line manager, supervisor or submit to our Ideas Bank.

Our rapidly growing population requires services and facilities for education, employment and leisure. In Inform we can discover the exciting development opportunities at Blindwells, the former Cockenzie Power Station site and around Queen Margaret University which will offer economic development growth including job creation.

Increasingly ‘shovels are now being put in the ground’ with building work started on the new Whitecraig Community Centre, the new Wallyford Primary School and library opening shortly, and finalised plans for the new secondary provision for the Musselburgh area. In addition we will have a new primary school at Letham Mains, Haddington starting this year and further extensions to other schools.

NHS Lothian, our partners in the Integration Joint Board, are leading on the new community hospital for East Lothian due to open later this year in Haddington. Jointly, we are also considering how best to provide care for our elderly population and colleagues have introduced some new technology to ease and support individuals to remain independent in their own homes.

I am sure 2019 will be a busy, but interesting year and I look forward to meeting and discovering more about our changing and innovative services. I would also like to add my congratulations to Area Housing manager, Andrew Gordon, for his BEM announced in the New Years Honours.