The River Esk runs through Musselburgh and is lined with trees.
An investigation has been launched after up to 12 trees were allegedly felled in Musselburgh to make way for a bin.
Scottish Forestry, the government body which oversees tree management, has confirmed it is looking into the removal of the trees, near the River Esk.
Unauthorised felling is a criminal offence and could result in a fine of up to £5,000 per tree chopped down being issued by the courts.
The investigation was revealed during a meeting of East Lothian Council’s cabinet this week where elected members were asked to approve a new Tree and Woodland Strategy for the local authority.
Councillor Shona McIntosh, local member for Musselburgh, told the meeting: “Just last week I had several complaints from constituent about someone who put in a planning application for some bins, hadn’t mentioned anything about tree removal and then anything between seven and 12 mature trees have been felled.”
Councillors were told the new strategy aimed to highlight the importance of trees and woodland with the public and make people more aware of the protections in place.
Their officer said: “Most trees need felling permission from Scottish Forestry who are investigating that particular case, but it is whether people are aware that that is the case.”
A Scottish Forestry spokesperson said: “We take all reports of alleged unauthorised fellings very seriously and will follow up based on the information given.
“In this case there have been no permissions given to fell these trees and therefore the action is now subject to a formal investigation. Our woodland officers will be visiting the site very soon as part of information gathering.
“Once we have completed our work we will determine next steps. We won’t be in a position to comment further until the investigation has run its course.”
Councillor Andy Forrest, fellow Musselburgh ward member, called for additional information to be made available to the public on where to report concerns about trees being felled.
He said: “The area where this happened has been totally changed and I think it could possibly have been stopped.”
The new Tree and Woodland Strategy covers ambitious plans to help East Lothian Council meeting its net carbon neutral targets and deliver a range of biodiversity, landscape, health and well being, and green network benefits .
Working along with communities, landowners and farmers it is hoped to create an East Lothian Climate Change Forest with proposals to plant two million trees by 2031 across the county, increase the urban tree canopy and expand its network of hedgerows.
The planting of two million trees will increase woodland cover by an area of around 1250 ha, around three times the size of John Muir Country Park.
The tree canopy cover target for the county is 30 per cent, which, the strategy reveals, is currently only met in Longniddry and Pencaitland.
Areas where the canopy cover is most behind the target include the new town of Blindwells, Wallyford and Macmerry which are just 10 per cent or lower.
Council leader Norman Hampshire praised the work of the officers in producing the new strategy and its importance to the future of the county.
He said: “We need to make sure we protect what we have. A tree is a climate regulator, it is not just the carbon it takes out from the atmosphere, it also reduces the water that is in the ground. It provides shade, reduces wind blow and provides shelter so having as many trees as we can helps our environment.”
The full Tree & Woodland Strategy can be downloaded from the East Lothian council website, see item 08 HERE.
Using council tax income to plug holes in Edinburgh’s cash-strapped affordable housing projects is among the “big ideas” being mulled by local authority bosses to get the city’s housebuilding programme back on track.
It’s anticipated that no new affordable housing schemes will be approved in the capital for at least the next year, following an £11m cut by the Scottish Government.
Coupled with rocketing construction costs driven by inflation, the recent reduction in grant funding makes the monumental task of fixing the housing crisis – reducing the city’s record number of 5,000 homeless households – that bit more difficult.
Now council chiefs are looking to “innovative financial models” and other new approaches in a bid to keep spades in the ground.
These include the potential to “hypothecate” council tax – which traditionally funds local services – for housing projects facing shortfalls, the housing committee heard this week.
Another option under consideration, to lower the target for developers to make 70 per cent of affordable housing delivered social rent – the cheapest form of rented accommodation – raised concerns this could lead to the council “doing less to help those of our citizens in the greatest need”.
Edinburgh Council says it could deliver 11,000 new affordable homes across the city in the next five years alongside its social landlord partners. However, the city’s strategic housing investment plan – or ‘SHIP’ – which sets out a potential ‘pipeline’ of projects needs a £665m cash injection to become a reality.
And the plan’s financial black hole widened further following a 26 per cent cut to the Scottish Government’s affordable homes budget approved in February.
Housing manager Lisa Mallon said: “We’ve had our £45m cut to £34m and we still don’t know what next year’s resource planning assumptions are going to be, which is very challenging when we’re trying to plan programmes over a two or three year period.”
Addressing councillors at the meeting on Tuesday, May 16, she said the “big challenge” was “not knowing what the following year is going to look like”.
Cllr Alys Mumford, Greens, questioned what “big ideas” were being explored “if it looks like more money isn’t going to happen”.
Council tax
Paul Lawrence, the authority’s executive director of place and soon-to-be chief executive, said Scottish Ministers were “looking for innovation” from councils to solve the issue.
He said: “If the cupboard is bare, what can be done to try and bring new forms of financial approaches, particularly to the delivery of affordable housing rather than market housing?
“One of the ideas we’ve been trying to explore is whether we might look at retention of council tax – effectively hypothicating council tax for a period so that we could keep it to achieve closing some of these gaps in the viability of schemes.”
Mr Lawrence admitted this was “not the way that council tax funding works,” however added: “Our argument has been actually if you get your schemes away, at some point there’s going to be additional receipts.
“If you don’t get them away there’s going to be nothing. So there is additionality there to be got – but it does require thinking through existing financial arrangements in a new way.”
He said some civil servants were “really keen” to explore this option but it would challenging. “We’re trying,” he added, “but we’re not there yet.”
Developer contributions
Officials said they were also looking at getting more flexibility around the use of ‘commuted sums’ where developers unable to deliver affordable housing on-site in line with the council’s 25 per cent policy for schemes with 12 or more homes pay an agreed sum to the council instead.
Usually the agreement ring-fences this cash to fund construction of affordable homes within same area. However this could be relaxed to use commuted sums “citywide” on “projects where affordable homes are due to be delivered in the next few years,” a report to the committee said, “otherwise there is a risk that the affordable homes will not be able to proceed”.
Mr Lawrence said: “What we’re after is more flexibility. There are effectively some accumulated funds . . . then money would come planning application by planning application and obviously the amount of money would depend on the size of the scheme.”
Housing committee convener Jane Meagher, Labour, said: “Effectively better flexibility would increase our ability to use whatever commuted sums – funds – are available because they would be less likely to be restricted by the legislation.”
Tenure mix
Ms Mallon said council “may need to look at our tenure mix” to increase the number of affordable homes being built.
Edinburgh’s affordable housing policy requires new planning applications to provide an affordable housing contribution, usually provided on-site by registered social landlords, with an aspiration that 70 per cent of the properties will be delivered as social rent.
She added: “We have that 70 per cent social rent aspiration but just looking at the funding around that and the average benchmark that goes forward, you could deliver almost 55 per cent more mid-market rent homes just based on the funding benchmark, that’s linked to rental income and borrowing as well. So we may have to look at that.”
Labour councillor Tim Pogson pointed out this could mean helping “fewer of those of our citizens who are in the greatest need – those who are least able to afford their tenancies clearly are the ones that need the social rent.
“I appreciate we have to compromise wherever we can compromise on this.
“If we’re shifting the balance to mid market rent, we’re doing less to help those of our citizens in the greatest need and that is obviously a concern to us.”
Ms Mallon replied: “It’s a major challenge and I suppose we would always seek to maximise the number of social rent we can get on site – that is something we need to do – but it’s important to note to committee the scale of that and what the impact could be.
“What I would say as well is we’ve got the acquisitions and disposals programme so we are seeking to purchase second hand homes for social rent that doesn’t require grant funding.”
New financial approaches
Cllr Meagher said: “There are many ways in which we’re seeking to mitigate what is really a very unfortunate set of circumstances.”
The committee requested “new financial approaches which could help mitigate the challenge” to be set out in a future report.
An amendment by the Lib Dems, which was accepted by Cllr Meagher, agreed to “urge the Scottish Government to review its Housing funding priorities, review its stance on the Edinburgh Housing Emergency”, asking this to be conveyed by the convener “in the strongest and most robust terms”.
However the wording was opposed by SNP members of the committee. “I don’t think we need the gratuitous Scottish Government bashing,” Cllr Stuart Dobin said. “We have a new first minister, a new deputy first minister.
“The first minister has indicated he wants to take a different approach, so I doubt that ‘strongest and most robust’ expression of the ask will generate the most post positive response.”
Cllr Euan Hyslop, SNP, added: “It’s important to point out the Scottish Government over the last 13 years has a fantastic record on social and affordable housing, 10,000 per year, 130,000 over the last 13 years which is twice the amount per capita than has been provided or built in England and Wales, which I think is a remarkable achievement.”
Edinburgh Council’s planning department is facing a backlog of over 1,600 short-term let applications, sparking “serious questions” over whether it is adequately resourced.
New figures have revealed the extent of pressures on the city’s planning service following the introduction of new regulations for second homes used as holiday lets.
They show that at the end of March a total of 2,546 short-term let (STL) applications had been lodged since 2018, with 880 of these granted, refused or withdrawn so far – leaving 1,666 which are yet to be issued with a decision.
More than two-thirds (76%) of the backlog is made up of requests for certificates of lawfulness.
Previously the council said this route was only available to those who could prove their property had been used as an STL for more than 10 years.
However, after a judicial review last year found the authority could no longer demand ‘change of use’ applications for all other holiday lets, an increasing number of landlords have sought lawful certificates in a bid to avoid the full planning permission process – which has seen just one in three approved, of those determined so far.
Cllr Chas Booth, Edinburgh Greens’ spokesperson on planning, said: “I’m extremely concerned that more than 8 of every 10 applications for an STL certificate of lawfulness have not yet been determined by the council.
“It’s important that these applications are processed swiftly and fairly, not just for the applicants, who deserve a clear decision, but also for neighbours and communities who might be impacted by some of these applications.
“This raises serious questions about whether the council has sufficient resources, and enough planning officers, to cope with the number of STL applications.”
Fiona Campbell, CEO of trade body the Association of Scotland’s Self-Caterers (ASSC), said: “Industry repeatedly warned about the resource implications for local authorities stemming from short-term let regulations.
“The status quo is a lose-lose situation for all concerned as planning departments are overwhelmed while small business owners face crippling uncertainty.
“Taking a proactive approach to address these challenges, the ASSC has presented legally sound and mutually beneficial policy solutions to City of Edinburgh Council.
“This would help enable a sustainable future for the remaining self-catering businesses in the capital and reduce the administrative burden for the Council.
“With jobs and livelihoods on the line, we want to get this right and we look forward to further discussions with them on the regulatory framework.”
Planning convener Cllr James Dalgleish said: “We’ve expanded the short term lets team since the control area was first introduced in September 2022 as we are acutely aware that backlogs need to be reduced and applications processed in a timely manner.
“This has been challenging due to the volume of applications received and the handling of a large number of public comments and queries in this area. The team has also had to consider the implications of the outcome of the judicial review in December 2023 which has had a knock on impact on the timescales in the determination of applications.”
