What a whirl these last few months have been! Since I last wrote a blog post I have been developing and taking forward a set of five key priorities for the Energy Projects Partnership, with a significant focus on a series of workshops exploring ways to deliver key ambitions in the Local Place Plan.
Looking back over 2025, there is so much I could highlight, but today I would like to home in our partnership approach to minimising the impacts of energy infrastructure construction for the community, as we look forward to a brief respite over the festive season.
Although there is a general acceptance of the need for renewables and transmission infrastructure in the community, this does not take away from the very real impacts for residents. The impacts are not just about how the landscape will be changed once built, but about the process of construction. Especially in an area with so much going on, the cumulative impacts can be very challenging.
Narrow rural roads become access roads for HGVs, with abnormal loads such as wind turbine blades being transported at times. An already difficult stretch of the A1, with large portions not dualled, leads to these access roads. Unintended consequences for other road users occur, such as horse riders losing natural refuges along field boundaries when areas are fenced off for construction, or obstacles to informal access routes for cyclists occurring. Long stretches of hedgerows are sometimes taken out to facilitate construction, to be reinstated in the future, but with a tangible loss to the community and nature in the meantime.
But there is hope. Together we are developing an approach in East Lammermuir where the community has greater agency and there is joined-up thinking – such as having a single point of contact. We are finding ways as a partnership (community, energy companies, transmission owners and East Lothian Council) for residents to report issues and get timely responses and action.
What does this look like in practice?
Recently I have been receiving reports of HGVs turning right onto the A1, where they are only meant to be turning left to avoid crossing the carriageway. As soon as the associated project was identified and notified, these incidents were taken seriously and action taken. The project community liaison was grateful for this being highlighted as they want to minimise disruption to the community.
Horse laybys have been installed around a field which was fenced off as a compound associated with the Branxton substation project, guided by local horse riders.
East Lothian Council are actively engaged in the details of these impacts too: recently the Access Officer joined me to view a well used informal route to the National Cycle Network from the Innerwick area to ensure access is retained past the entrance to one of the construction sites, albeit at cyclists own risk.
Some residents are part of a Community Traffic and Travel Forum, which I facilitate, and together we have been reflecting on the construction impacts and coming up with positive solutions to put forward. A proposal for vehicle signage has been adopted by SP Energy Networks, to help residents to identify vehicles which are going to their Eastern Green Link 1 sites. Watch out for their bright pink EGL1 windscreen stickers!
We have plenty of other ideas which we are pursuing and look forward to a collaborative 2026 where we see many more positive solutions being actioned!
For now, I wish all our partners a peaceful festive season,
Beth
Featured photo: members of the Community Traffic and Travel Forum and Biodiversity Community Liaison group on a visit to sites associated with the Eastern Green Link 1 and Branxton substation projects.