Planning for the future
Housing Land Audits 2019-2024
East Lothian is one of Scotland's fastest growing areas. The population is projected to increase 13.3% to 2039 compared to 2.5% nationally. This is the second largest increase in Scotland. In Scotland, the number of households containing children is projected to fall by 3% by 2039. In contrast, East Lothian is projected to have one of the highest proportions of households containing children nationally by 2039 at around 27% of all households.
Housing Land Audits (HLAs) monitor housing completions and are then used as a tool to programme and forecast future house building. They assess the adequacy of the housing land supply against policy requirements and directly inform planning, market and infrastructure decision-making. The two key functions of HLAs are to demonstrate that a five-year effective land requirement is continuously met, and to provide a snapshot of available land at any point in time. HLAs should be informative not only for planners, but also for the development industry, infrastructure and other service providers.
Blindwells
Once completed, Blindwells will hold 1600 new homes, the first of which are already under construction. Alongside the homes will be land for employment and associated infrastructure. A new early years and primary school facility will be built as part of the 125 hectare site, with Preston Lodge High School providing secondary education for pupils. Cockenzie Primary School is hosting Blindwells pupils until the new primary school opens.
There is additional land safeguarded within our East Lothian Local Development Plan 2018 and work is ongoing to decide how best this can be used in future. This will involve discussions with a wide range of audiences, especially communities, and will look at the impacts on a number of services and strategies, including education provision. The views of communities will be gathered as part of this ongoing process.