Chief Executive, Laurence Rockey

I’d like to take this opportunity, in January Inform, to wish every one of you a very happy New Year. I hope you are all starting 2026 refreshed after the festive break and ready for an eventful year full of challenges and opportunities!

I had a busy festive season with the family. Some of my highlights were a trip with the kids to Dunbar Leisure Pool, which was tremendous fun. We were also lucky enough to get booked on the Alpine Coaster at Hillend which was exhilarating to say the least! Indoors, I’ve been dipping my toes into the new season of The Night Manager, as I’m sure a lot of us are. Did you have to re-watch Season One? I did! A worthwhile reminder of the exciting start to this drama.

Looking ahead to the next few months, you can read here about the next important step for the Musselburgh Flood Protection Scheme as we move to a public local enquiry. We’ll hear more about this in due course once a Scottish Government Reporter has been appointed.

Of course, February is budget time and we will be looking at some difficult choices at the special Council meeting on Tuesday 24 February, some of which will be influenced by yesterday’s Scottish Government budget announcement. As we continue to deliver our services in increasingly difficult financial times, it is worth repeating that I’m very proud and grateful to everyone at East Lothian Council for your efforts to bring forward and embrace changes in the way we work to keep providing for our communities.

We’ll then swiftly move into the pre-election period, starting on Monday 16 March, with the Scottish Parliament elections taking place on Thursday 7 May. The election count will be taking place at Meadowmill on Friday 8 May - no overnight counting this time. It will be particularly busy for all staff involved in the count and me as Returning Officer as East Lothian Council is now responsible for two counts following the change in boundaries. We will be counting the East Lothian Coast and Lammermuirs and the Edinburgh Eastern, Musselburgh and Tranent constituencies, which both replace the former East Lothian constituency.

During the pre-election period we will be more restricted on what communications we can issue. If you have any questions about this, email communications@eastlothian.gov.uk and the team can advise.

In the meantime, I am looking forward to resuming my visits to some of our teams and settings, with around 15 schools left to visit. Watch this space!

Chief Executive, Laurence Rockey