Estates management service

East Lothian Council's Estates Management Service manage council owned non-housing properties, which are not used for the direct delivery of council services. This encourages the economic development of East Lothian.

Examples of the properties we manage are:

• shops
• offices
• industrial units
• agricultural land

We also provide professional property advice and support to other council departments.

We lease out non-housing council property and we can:

• tell you if the council owns a particular property
• grant access across council land for the utility services
• provide advice and assistance on property ownership matters to council departments
• lease in or buy property required to assist the council to deliver its' services
• confirm if the council has an interest in a property - looking after war memorials, town clocks, maintaining the access through a woodland, etc

You can find out more information on the above by going to the 'Our services' page, which is available by clicking the link at the bottom of this page.

Development sites and surplus properties

On the rare occasion when the council has a property which is surplus to requirements, the property is usually advertised for sale on the open market, with a closing date for the submission of formal offers.

Please note that we do not generally have individual house plots for sale;  any that do become available will be offered for sale as described above.

Garden ground

We respond to requests from local residents for the purchase of amenity land for the extension of their private garden ground. 

Industrial and business development sites

The council has a small stock of land available for lease or development for industrial or office use, falling under Planning Use Classes 4, 5, and 6.

Commercial property for lease

We manage and let approximately 400 office, industrial and retail properties throughout East Lothian. These include:

• approximately 50 small industrial units from 50 to 180 sq m (c. 500 to 2,000 sq ft), which are let on easy in, easy out terms
• over 20 larger industrial units of 180 to 2,600 sq m (c. 2,000 to 28,000 sq ft)
• over 40 small offices
• over 40 high street shops
• numerous stores, areas of agricultural land, industrial land, etc.

Property register

You can find out what we currently have on the market or for lease by going to our available properties page.