Over the autumn and winter months we held a series of workshops looking at next steps for the 4 community ambitions drawn from the East Lammermuir Local Place Plan.
We are delighted to share the reports from each workshop with you! Click on the drop downs below to explore.
Workshop 1: Energy Efficiency
October 2025
Ambition: All properties within one kilometre of construction works, haul roads or access routes on public roads should be brought up to a minimum of EPC band C, with any appropriate micro renewables included.
Facilitator: Energy Saving Trust
Workshop 2: Active Travel
November 2025
Ambition: A useable, effective Active Travel Network of segregated paths should be planned, designed and built – to include at least one safe crossing over or under the A1 and mainline railway towards the coast and Dunbar.
This report includes the results from the Active Travel survey that followed the workshop
Facilitator: Walking Scotland
Workshop 3: Biodiversity
December 2025
Ambition: An ambitious biodiversity gain plan should be devised, agreed and implemented with maximum use of developer support for local volunteers and other relevant aspects of the plan.
Facilitator: East Lothian Climate Hub
Workshop 4: Community Transport
January 2026
Ambition: A public or community transport service should be re-introduced to link the villages with Cockburnspath and Dunbar.
Facilitator: Beth Landon, Energy Projects Partnership Manager on behalf of East Lammermuir Community Council, with support from Community Transport Association.
Background
These workshops are part of a mapping and gapping exercise to determine what pieces of the puzzle we have for taking forward the four community ambitions and where the gaps are, to inform the next steps.
They were funded by SPEN (the Transmission Owner) out of their capacity building budget to prepare the way for the spend of community benefits from the Eastern Green Link 1 (EGL1) project and have been developed in collaboration with East Lammermuir Community Council and myself, the Energy Projects Partnership Manager.
The resulting reports will guide the spend of SPEN / EGL1 community benefits funding, but are not limited to this fund and will also inform the spend of other community benefits available to the East Lammermuir community, attract match funding and inform in-kind work from energy developers and transmission owners.
Throughout the process we were supported by East Lothian Climate Hub. They are currently working on a fifth report pulling together common themes and synergies from the four workshops.
If you have any questions please get in touch with beth@elep.scot